Home-ice disadvantage
Maple Leafs get bitten by Coyotes,
Much of the thrust of Mike Babcock’s coaching tenure in Toronto is him being the one coach who can transform the Maple Leafs into a compete-every-night team from the outfit that lost too many games last season because of a lack of compete.
In the second period of Monday night’s 4-3 loss to the Arizona Coyotes, Babcock saw a lack of compete, and being the intensely competitive soul he is, he didn’t like it.
“Lots of nights I’ve talked about how good we did some things, even though we didn’t get a result, but that didn’t happen tonight,” Babcock said after the Leafs were done in again by a poor penalty kill and a first period in which they failed to match their opponent in compete level.
“We weren’t good enough, period. We addressed (after the game) how we looked in that second period. I haven’t seen that since I’ve been here. We can talk about how good we looked in games but when you don’t compete with enough level you have to say that too.”
Babcock and the Leafs had plenty to talk about after this latest loss, which saw Arizona rookie Max Domi notch his fourth goal of the season and the Leafs, after giving up a pair of first-period power-play goals, manage just five shots in that soft second period. The Leafs have yet to win on home ice this season.
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It was a memorable night for Domi, 20, playing in his hometown for the first time as an NHLer with several of his former London Knights teammates — including Leafs’ first-round pick Mitchell Marner — cheering him on.
His father, Tie, was all smiles and got several high-fives from the crowd and Air Canada Centre staff after his son snapped a shot past James Reimer at 6:31 of the first period for the Coyotes’ first powerplay goal.
Shane Doan had the other power-play goal, the ninth goal allowed in 31 chances for the Leafs’ 25th-rated penalty kill.
“You take the kind of penalties we did and you hurt yourself,” said defenceman Morgan Rielly.
The young defender scored his second goal of the season and has been the Leafs’ best player so far this season.
“We’re OK to kill hard-working penalties, where we take one because of our effort. But right now, our penalty kill has to be better, that’s the bottom line.”
Also scoring for the Leafs were James van Riemsdyk and Shawn Matthias.
Reimer, given his first start in 10 days, was down on himself after the game even though his coach wasn’t. Babcock handed Reimer the start after three consecutive games for Jonathan Bernier to “give Reims a shot” at the No. 1 job.
Reimer would like to have had the third goal back — a slap shot by Klas Dahlbeck, which rose sharply over his glove hand for the Coyotes’ third goal.
“I felt I should have played better, that’s the only thing I can control and it didn’t happen,” said Reimer, honest about his performance even though Babcock said his goalie probably tried too hard to be better.
“That third goal, that’s my fault. I lost sight of it for a half second and it’s in the back of the net. I can come up with a million excuses, but that’s not what we’re about here. At the end of the day, I wasn’t good enough for my teammates.”
Babcock, in the end, praised the work of rookie Byron Froese, saying he will play a third straight game when the Leafs are in New York to face the Rangers on Friday.
That doesn’t bode well for Peter Holland, back at centre Monday after being a healthy scratch in that loss to Montreal Saturday night.