Babcock shoulders the blame
Leafs coach says team’s sluggish starts are on him and his staff
Mike Babcock has called out himself and his assistants when searching for reasons why the Maple Leafs have been so wonky at the start of recent games.
A couple of times in this recent streak — six losses the past eight games — he’s referenced their slow starts and blamed them in part on his role in game preparation. If that makes the highly paid Babcock and his details-oriented staff look bad, so be it. It wasn’t just a convenient sound byte after Saturday’s 3-1 loss to the Buffalo Sabres, a three-goal first-period letdown in a game the Leafs should’ve been amped up for, with a division rival in the house and a tenuous playoff spot to protect.
“It’s real important we ask our players to take ownership, so why wouldn’t you as coach or manager do your part,” Babcock said after Monday’s practice at the MasterCard Centre. “It’s like anything, we’re all in this together. When we play well, we all get the credit and when we play poorly, we all get the blame.”
The sluggish Sabres’ game followed an early lead taken by the St. Louis Blues on Thursday. Going back even further to a fivegoal outburst by Dallas, Toronto has been out-scored 13-6 in the opening period of its past seven starts. The Leafs had been the NHL’s most productive firstperiod scoring team, but their 58 goals is now second to Washington.
So much of this season for the 30th-place Leafs was put into pre-game prep, with Babcock and his assistants already one of the most workaholic staffs in the NHL. They have a small army of strength coaches, sports science experts, video specialists and nutritionists. More emphasis was placed on making the Air Canada Centre tougher to play in with more crowd noise generated. Yes, the Leafs are better at home and in the post-season picture for now, but they’ll have to do better than .500 in their own rink (13-9-4) as a four-game home-stand wraps up Tuesday against the Islanders.
“Our team didn’t get off to a good start (Saturday), we looked lethargic, they won all the battles and were better than us,” Babcock said. “What happens between our meetings an hour and a half before the game and when the game starts that we’re not jumping? We have to get that looked after. That’s been an area of our strength and suddenly it’s not as good for us.
“Sometimes you start really good and the other teams scores first anyway. I thought we played great against St. Louis right at the start. They scored and they took over totally, but that first five or six minutes, we were on it. That doesn’t guarantee you’ll have success and score first, but it sure give you a chance.”
Before this season, the club’s first-period mis-steps were easy to explain. The Leafs were skating on eggshells and no one knew how the goaltending would respond one game to the next. Frederik Andersen had solved that it seemed, but his composure and the team’s defensive structure has taken a hit of late.
“We have a few things that need to be cleaned up that we’ve talked about the last few days,” said Andersen, who starts Tuesday. “We know we have to play quick to get out of our zone and put the pressure on them.
“It’s up to each and every one of us to be ready to play. That’s something we should be doing by now. We don’t have any surprises; other teams come in and see how good we are. Everyone who is coming in is trying to chase us, they want the points as much as we do.
“It’s how hard we work on the ice and how hard we work in the gym to prepare.”
Babcock had a good vibe after Monday, a rare chance in this condensed schedule to get a full practice in after a day off.
“You’re fresh enough to get some tempo going and get our work level back that allows you to be successful in the league,” he noted. “We’re through two thirds of the season and in a good spot, but the league gets better and better so if we want to continue in a good spot, we have to get better.
“April 12 is when the real season starts and you want to have an opportunity to be in that. But you have to earn the right for that to happen.”
Centre Nazem Kadri believes the Leafs can get back to the better times of December and January without radical alterations,
“I didn’t thing we’ve changed much,” he said. “It’s just been the way the game has gone. Some unfortunate bounces that haven’t gone our way. Whoever scores the first goal wins the majority of the time and we understand how important that is, hopefully get that first goal on the road to silence the crowd and the opposing team. We have to get back to that.
“We’re pretty good with the lead and scoring first in the majority of our games this year. We want to generate some puck luck our way.”