Maple Leafs go down hard in Florida: ‘They won all the battles’

Forget everything the Maple Leafs had been saying about getting their game into proper gear heading into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

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On Tuesday night against the Florida Panthers, the Leafs got stuck in neutral and couldn’t move.

The final score at Amerant Bank Arena in Sunrise was 3-1 for the Panthers, but that result flattered the visitors.

Not only did the Panthers outshoot the Leafs 37-18, they had 73 attempts to the Leafs’ 36. When your opponent had more shots on goal than you had attempts, you know it has been a bad night.

Our takeaways from a loss that was discouraging, considering that the Leafs have just five games remaining before the playoffs:

COMPETITIVE IMBALANCE

From start to finish, the Leafs weren’t in the game.

Their stars weren’t in it. Their depth players weren’t in it. Their goalie, Joseph Woll, got into it after giving up a soft goal in the first period. Woll was the reason the Leafs had a chance in the third period as the game was tied 1-1 after 40 minutes, but how about making a save on that Gustav Forsling shot in the first period?

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That blemish helped lead to the loss, though truth be told, it might not have mattered had Woll caught Forsling’s shot and kept the game 0-0 at that point.

If success starts and ends with your best players, then captain Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander failed in a big way.

Only John Tavares, who scored an unassisted goal, put his name on the scoresheet.

Matthews had one shot on goal, late in the third period. Marner and Nylander combined for none.

On the other side, Panthers captain Aleksander Barkov returned after missing three games with an injury and won seven of his 10 faceoffs, had an assist and registered six shot attempts.

If your highest-paid players can’t fight through the tight manner in which the defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers play, what happens if the clubs meet in the playoffs?

“You’re going to have to get in there and win battles against this team, that’s for sure,” Leafs coach Craig Berube told media in Florida after the game. “We spent too much time defending, not enough time in the offensive zone. The second period wasn’t bad, but we didn’t generate a lot because they won all the battles in the offensive zone.

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“I didn’t think we moved the puck quick enough in the offensive zone. They’re on you, they’re tight. You have to move it quick. You have to deliver pucks quick. We didn’t do a good enough job of that.”

That extended to the Leafs’ power play. They had one shot on goal on two power plays.

The Leafs had their worst game of the season on faceoffs, winning just 29% (12 of 42) of draws. The most egregious (and surprising) loss was by Tavares, who was beaten cleanly by Anton Lundell, leading to Forsling’s goal.

For Berube, the faceoff trouble was a barometer for the game.

“They wanted it more than us and it starts in the faceoff circle,” Berube said. “It comes down to competitiveness and digging in more. (They were) a more desperate team than us.”

In past years, every so often, the Leafs had the kind of performance that would have kept former coach Sheldon Keefe up at night — a poor game that came out the blue, similar to this one following a four-game winning streak.

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The Leafs just about had these sorts of games out of their system, but not quite fully yet. Will what happened on Tuesday night matter when the playoffs start? Whether it does, wouldn’t it have been nice to not be asking that question so late in the regular season?

A KNIES SUMMATION

Leave to youngster Matthew Knies to bring some clarity during post-game availability.
This Leafs group, certainly the majority if it that was part of the Keefe era, isn’t overly comfortable looking in the mirror after bad losses.

Knies’ take provided some fresh air.

“It’s always physical (against the Panthers),” Knies said. “We expect that when we come in here, that it’s going to be a hard battle.

“We knew it was going to be like this, and we tried to push back, but I think we didn’t do do a good enough job.

“Our physicality, I think we were a little bit soft in some areas. We’re going to have to learn to do that when it comes to playoff time.”

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Ouch. Harsh but fair. Soft is a four-letter word in the National Hockey League.

Again, the Leafs should require no reminders at this point of the season. If they bring anything similar into their game in Tampa Bay against the Lightning on Wednesday, they’re bound to lose.

A victory against Tampa in regulation would give Toronto a four-point bulge atop the Atlantic Division, after which both teams would have four games remaining. A loss to Tampa in regulation and the two teams will be tied with 98 points.

THIRD TIME NO CHARM

Maybe it shouldn’t have been a surprise considering how the first two periods went, but the Leafs couldn’t pull ahead in the third period despite the game being tied 1-1.

The Leafs had no uprising in them, as they were outshot 9-4 in the third and outscored 2-0.

In the final minutes, Tavares lost three draws in the offensive zone and the Leafs never really threatened goalie Sergei Bobrovsky before Carter Verhaeghe scored into an empty Leafs net with 47 seconds left.

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“We just didn’t carry play as much as we would like,” Tavares said. “They play hard. They came hard. We had a much better second period and put ourselves in a good spot and we didn’t execute enough in the third.

“The play without the puck is critical, the way you support one another. You make your reads to be on your toes to be ready for that next play when you’re advancing it up the ice and you’re on the forecheck to stall plays, to cause turnovers, to earn more pucks in the offensive zone, and then execution.”

Tavares nicely described what the Leafs didn’t do in Florida and will have no choice but to do in Tampa.

More of the same shouldn’t be acceptable.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun

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