Toronto Maple Leafs Once Again Leave Points on the Table vs a Bad Team

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost 4-3 against the Philadelphia Flyers last night in a hard-fought road game in which they deserved better.

Far be it for me to say the Toronto Maple Leafs deserved better, but they did. They hit about 46 posts (OK, maybe only four or five, but still....) and were (by far) the better team.

I don't know how much comfort there is in that, but it's the truth.

Then again, the Flyers are a bad team and the Leafs have been contenders long enough that these games should be far more automatic than they seem to be.

Toronto Maple Leafs Once Again Leave Points on the Table vs a Bad Team

The Leafs, who probably would win the division title if they didn't leave about 20 points on the table against the NHL's dud teams so far this season, lost another one that they shouldn't have.

Without Marner and Jarnkrok, the Leafs were a bit short-handed, but this game could have been a blessing in disguise, because Ilya Samsonov reminded us that he's Ilya Samsonov and should not be allowed within 200 feet of a Playoff Game.

Ignoring the matter of how many break-aways the Leafs seemed to want Philly to have, it was a decent game on their part, and one which they probably would have won with any luck whatsoever.

The Leafs might have been outshot at 5v5, but they also doubled the Flyers scoring chances. The new-look super-slow bad-at-passing Leafs blue-line isn't exactly good at getting the puck out of their zone, but they are excellent at keeping the shots limited to a lower-quality than usual.

Timothy Liljegren, who got burned on a pretty sweet play by Cam York, was excellent overall, and the Leafs had 7 dangersous chances to the Flyers 1 while he was on the ice. Ironically, he looked ridiculous on that single chance and that's likely all people will remember about his game.

Realistically though, Liljegren is excellent and only getting better. He's not a great defender, but he consistantly makes it so the team has to play less defense. He's really underrated and a key figure on the Leafs blue line, since he's their only right-hander whose any good, and one of only two good puck-moving defenders on the entire team.

Overall, in a game where the power-play looked bad, Marner didn't play, and the goalie was horrendous, you have to give credit for the Leafs for being the better team and almost pulling out a victory.

Then again, winning against the Flyers - especially without Couturier and Walker - should be automatic for the Leafs at this point. So it's another two points left on the table, but ultimately, this wasn't much more than an exhibition game anyways.