Is it a bird? Is it a plane? No, It's Auston Matthews addressing the media with a call for accountability. The Maple Leafs captain told reporters after Sunday's lopsided 4-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils, amid injuries across the roster, "We’ve got to look in the mirror, ask a little bit more of ourselves and take on a little bit more.”
The Maple Leafs were hit with more injury blows this past weekend as Morgan Rielly left Saturday's loss to Montreal with a lower-body injury and Colton Sissons exited Sunday's game with the same designation. It's a turbulent time for the Leafs, who have dropped six of their last seven games and are in an Atlantic Division running rampant with points. The Leafs find themselves 0-4 in the midst of a six-game homestand that has featured some of the league's most talented rosters, and games against the West's two best teams, Minnesota and Edmonton, still await.
It's especially difficult to win games when you're bereft of quality in your roster, and heading into Sunday's loss, the Leafs were hit especially hard by the late scratch of Jack Roslovic due to a lower-body injury and Chris Tanev, who sat out for load management. It still wasn't enough, however, with Tanev and Roslovic back in the lineup for Tuesday's 6-3 loss against the Avalanche.
The Leafs have to save themselves
The tone around the room after Tuesday's loss is clear: Resilience. Headstrong veteran Sergei Bobrovsky was asked about his sense of urgency, especially when playing in such a tough division as the Atlantic. "You can overthink easily," said Bobrovsky, "You can put yourself in a hole. You know, you have to cut it off. You have to put that behind (so) you can move to the next moment."
Second-year breakout star Easton Cowan echoed a similar sentiment when asked how he felt about the group through this losing skid. “I think we’re all just trying to stick together," said Cowan, "a little adversity here, quarter of the way through the season, so, better to deal with it now than later.”
Head coach Jim Hiller gave an unvarnished answer when asked how to get the Leafs out of their current funk. “You work your way out. There’s only one way. You can’t hope. You can’t be average. You gotta work your way out—every guy."
The message ringing through the Leafs' change room shouldn't surprise fans, as players will often look inward to the current roster for answers rather than clamouring for outside help. For the Leafs, it just so happens that this is the only solution available to them, at least for this season and perhaps even next.
No good deed goes unpunished
Chayka has done a ton of retooling and, although he has a reputation for not being gun-shy, will likely have to see his experiment through this season before selling off any value to contending teams down the stretch. The Leafs just don't have the assets to bring in another game-wrecker–short of trading one of their own. The solution doesn't appear readily available, and the NMC's littered across this roster limit the moves they could possibly make.
Mortgaging even more of your future for band-aids over gashes that need proper stitches will only lead to scarring. And the scars of past regimes are already here, as the Leafs don't have their first-round pick this year or next. One of those picks was dealt to their divisional rival, the Bruins–who are enjoying a seat atop the division–along with Fraser Minton, who is in the midst of a breakout year after being traded for Brandon Carlo, whom Chayka offloaded to St. Louis for a couple of third-rounders after failing to make an impact last season.
The Leafs will have to call on the guys they bet on. Darryn Raddysh has to continue to give them more of that pop we saw last night against the Avalanche, and Bobrovsky, although not the biggest culprit for the Leafs' defensive deficiencies, has to be better and will be asked to steal more games for them as the season gets closer to the halfway point.
Addressing the elephant in the room
The Leafs have a bottom-five defensive group in the NHL. There's no way around it, and even with Morgan Rielly's point resurgence and Troy Stecher stepping up to play better hockey than anyone expected, it's nowhere near enough to contend with the league's upper echelon.
After 19 games and a sense of what we're dealing with, some of the bottom-six signings feel a little redundant. There isn't much separating Teddy Blueger and Colton Sissons in terms of what they bring to the table. Because the third line has been a disaster no matter the iteration and the fourth line has been one of the bright spots for this roster, if a move were to be made, it might be to offload Sissons' $4 million salary to another team for another depth defenseman or draft capital to leverage later for help on the blue line.
Dakota Joshua probably won't garner any serious interest, and based on his play this season, waiving him would probably be best for the club. Doing so would give younger players in the minors a chance to earn ice time, provide some extra relief on the cap, and open the door to more roster competition.
Packaging one of the aforementioned forwards with a veteran D-man like McCabe or OEL for a younger, more promising defenceman/draft capital would send a clear message; it would also be tough to pull off without retaining some cap. But whether those moves happened simultaneously or in separate iterations, it would probably only be done at the point of no return.
For now, Leafs fans will have to hope the boys in blue can band together and rise above their current subpar play. And if it ever feels especially hopeless, just remind yourself of the 2019 St. Louis Blues, who sat in last place with 34 points (15-18-1) on January 2nd and went on to win the Stanley Cup.
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