The Toronto Maple Leafs followed up their best game of the season with their worst game of the season.
The Toronto Maple Leafs were shown the dangers of having an old team when Oliver Ekman-Larsson and Chris Tanev struggled immensely in the second half of the their first back-to-back since the season's first two games.
If you are Timothy Liljegren, you're probably excited by horrendous play of Simon Benoit, but everyone else likely did not enjoy that game very much.
The final score was 6-2 and it was a game featuring game-day travel and a the Leafs 3rd string goalie, so it's not a huge deal, but, on the other hand, championship teams win in these situations. There really is no excuse for losing to Columbus. (stats naturalstattrick.com).
The Toronto Maple Leafs get destroyed by one of the NHL's worst teams
The first problem with this game: Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews didn't show up. Not everyone can be awesome in every single game, but these two are not expected to ever take a game off.
Columbus scored six 5v5 goals, and Matthews and Marner were on for three of them. Matthew Knies was on for four of them. Matthews has 2 shots and zero on the power-play, which remains horrendous.
The power-play is 3 for like 25 or whatever this season, and that is not good enough. I have repeatedly said that the answer is as simple as splitting up Marner and Matthews because Marner is a completely different and less deferential player when he's not intent on constantly passing Matthews the puck.
Nick Robertson scored his first of the season and his line with Tavares was the only line that wasn't complete garbage. I don't even remember seeing William Nylander in this game.
I do remember seeing the line of Lorentz, Reaves and Holmberg and asking myself what the hell the coach was thinking. Sure, David Kampf is the NHL's most expensive fourth liner and he isn't that good, but he's still a lot better than Ryan Reaves, who is unplayable. Come on.
Speaking of unplayable, Oliver Ekman-Larsson had one of the worst games you'll ever see a defenseman have. He was insanely bad. The former superstar got off to a great start in his Toronto Maple Leafs career, but he's 33 already and signed for four years, so expect the majority of his games to look more like the Columbus one and less like the first six.
The Leafs are back at it tomorrow against the St. Louis Blues.