Sense of angst with underachieving Leafs
Collapse in Pittsburgh suggests problems have been obscured by special teams, goaltending
BUFFALO, N.Y. In a darkened corridor of a frigid arena, Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Randy Carlyle was asked whether he was concerned by what he had been seeing from his team on the ice, where mounting evidence suggests that a long, cold winter lay ahead.
“Well, I don’t sleep well,” he said. “I get stress headaches. I get a lot of things that you guys probably never experience. But that’s all part of it. That’s why I’m doing what I’m doing. There’s an adrenalin that comes with it, but there’s also some pretty big lows.
“And nights like last night bring you to Earth in a hurry.”
Carlyle was speaking in Buffalo on Thursday, but the main topic of conversation was still what happened in Pittsburgh, on Wednesday. The Leafs built a three-goal lead against the Penguins, but collapsed under the weight of their own success and lost in a shootout.
Taken in isolation, the result was a disappointment. Taken in a broader context, the result hints at fissures that have been masked by special teams play and goaltending — the team is being outshot, badly, and the numbers seem to be catching up.
In Pittsburgh, those fissures opened with singular dramatic flare, and nothing could mask the result. The Leafs were held without a shot for the final 25 minutes of the game, going through the entirety of the third period and overtime without once hitting the net.
It had been 13 years — since April 2000, according to various reports — since the Leafs had gone a full period without a single shot on goal. (Pittsburgh had 17 shots in the third period, and two more in overtime.)
Toronto has outshot the opposition only three times in 25 games this season.
The Leafs have the second-worst shot differential in the NHL, which means they allow, on average, 10 more shots than they generate every game. The only team below them? The Buffalo Sabres (-10.6), who have a league-low five wins.
In short, it is bad news.
‘I don’t think that there can be satisfaction, just because of the way we’ve played.’’ RANDY CARLYLE Toronto Maple Leafs head coach
“We’re salesmen, simple as that,” Carlyle said. “That’s what we are, as coaches. And we’re selling a program that we believe in. And we believe that this team can have success because we have talent ... we can play to a higher level.” They had better. The Leafs hold one of the Eastern Conference’s two wild-card playoff berths, but have won only twice in regulation this month. After facing the Sabres on Friday night, they head into one of the most challenging sections of their schedule, with teams that drive possession of the puck, and generate plenty of scoring chances.
“I don’t think that there can be satisfaction, just because of the way we’ve played,” Carlyle said. “Statistically, points-wise, body of work, body of play, I don’t think we’re satisfied.”
The Leafs built a 4-1 lead over the Penguins on Wednesday night. Through 40 minutes, they were only being outshot 29-24, and held a twogoal lead. Carlyle said the Toronto coaching staff actually had the Leafs holding an 11-9 advantage in their own, in-house tally of scoring chances. And then? “We stopped,” Carlyle said. “We stopped skating.”
“I think, eventually, it catches up to you, if you get outshot like that,” Leafs forward David Clarkson said. “But we’re in the midst of figuring things out. Like you guys, and everybody else in life, you go through learning lessons.”
For a segment of Leafs fans, the ones who track advanced statistics, awaiting the team’s decline has become a grim reality. Being outshot is often tied to possession, and having possession of the puck is key in generating chances, and controlling the game.
Leafs defenceman Carl Gunnarsson, though, does not believe shot quantity is necessarily the same as shot quality.
“Obviously, you’ve got to look at what kind of shots there are, right?” he said. “If we give up 50 shots and there’s 50 scoring chances, that’s different, right? But if they’re taking shots from the red line, or the goalie sees every shot, that’s OK if they’re a little higher.”