Babcock shoulders blame for Leafs loss to Carolina

Twenty-four minutes, more or less to the second.

That’s how long Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock worked his club at practice on Friday, a day after the Leafs were beaten handily with a shoddy effort against the visiting Carolina Hurricanes.

No one stayed on the ice afterward to work on individual skills. The Leafs departed the ice at the MasterCard Centre en masse, which rarely happens, if ever, following practice.

“Thought they worked hard,” Babcock said. “I set it up to go 30 minutes, we were able to get what I wanted done in 24.

“I didn’t want anybody out there wasting any energy fooling around, I want it at game time. It’s what we have a sports science team for, they tell me what I’m allowed to do and how far we are allowed to go.

“We should be as fresh as we can be tomorrow (when the Leafs play host to the Philadelphia Flyers at the Air Canada Centre).”

Winger James van Riemsdyk, dealing with a lower-body issue, did not practice, and Babcock could not say for sure whether van Riemsdyk will be in the lineup against Philadelphia.

Perhaps we could see forward Josh Leivo make his season debut after sitting for the first 10 games.

“Leivs is dying to play anyway,” Babcock said.

Babcock kept the Zach HymanAuston Matthews-William Nylander trio together, but had Tyler Bozak between Patrick Marleau and Mitch Marner, and Nazem Kadri centring Leo Komarov and Connor Brown. On the fourth line, Matt Martin and Leivo flanked Dominic Moore.

“We’re looking for something there,” Babcock said of using Bozak, Marleau and Marner together.

“We gotta get that group going. Just one of those things. We need more balance. Don’t get me wrong, I liked a lot of things about us (as the Leafs have won seven of their first 10 games), but I have not liked a couple of our efforts and we have to fix it, that’s all.”

Is it tough for a coach when efforts like the one against Carolina occur and there is no reason for them to happen? How does Babcock see it?

“I’m not going there,” Babcock said. How come? “Just not,” Babcock said. Later, Babcock said: “My job is to get us prepared. Obviously, I’m not doing a good-enough job because we weren’t prepared. I think you have to go though some things to understand some things that are going on with your team. We have to fix this and look forward. I was pumped that the sun got up today and now look forward to tomorrow.”

The Leafs lost 6-3 to the Hurricanes and goalie Frederik Andersen was not good enough to bail his teammates out. Andersen’s save percentage through nine games — Curtis McElhinney started one — is an ugly .893.

Is Andersen worried about his game?

“I’m always worried about getting better,” Andersen said. “Some games have gone a different way than you want it to be and I think you want to keep getting better.”