Maple Leafs’ players, coaches have lengthy wish list
Conversations around the NHL regarding the Maple Leafs have changed.
Ask an opposing player or coach about the Leafs, and the answers are almost uniform: they are wellcoached, they compete hard, they are hard to play against, you’ve got to grind out the game and it’s going to be close.
While all these are elements of their game that have been missing the past few seasons, they are also accolades that mean little to Leafs coach Mike Babcock.
He’d like the opposition to give a different kind of answer.
“I look forward to the day when the other team is scared of us,” said Babcock. “That’s what I look forward to. It’s great that we can make it tight and work real hard and compete real hard, but you’d like the other team to be fearful of a bunch of your guys, and wave after wave they’re going to come at you. That’s what we’re growing into.”
Such change clearly will take more time. For now, Babcock has a team that lacks scoring power, that has one win in 10 games, a club that will face many questions about who will stay and who will go leading up to the trade deadline.
There will be a fair bit of change for the Leafs in the months ahead. The Star asked some Leafs if they could magically change one thing what would it be. Babcock: “If I could change one thing magically? What I would say is I think your determination should show every night, not every second night or every third night. When you’re feeling good every night — that to me is the goal of our team. That we’re prepared and competitive every single night. When you do that, the score looks after itself.” Dion Phaneuf: “The one thing that sticks out for me that we have to do a better job of is the power play. We have to produce . . . we will. The power play is a funny thing. When you get confidence and you get scoring, you score in bunches. I think for me the one thing I’d like to produce on is the power play. It gives us momentum. It gives us offence. It’s a big part of the game.” Joffrey Lupul: “You want more skill. Probably 26 teams would answer the same thing. You can overcome a lot of things. If you play a team with a lot of skill, like you run into the Chicago Blackhawks on their best night, you’re not going to beat them. There are some teams in the league that have a lot of skill.” Shawn Matthias: “The starts; it would be nice to score first. To come out and just smother a team off the puck. Some teams, when you go into their barns, the first 10 minutes are crucial because they come at you in waves; four lines coming at you. Sometimes we just dip our toe into the waters, see how it feels and then we decide to jump right in in the second period. So a full 60 minutes, compete, and not over-think things.” James Reimer: “Something we’ve done well for the most part is our compete level. Just making sure that compete level is there every night, from every guy. That’s a standard answer maybe, but I feel if that’s there, then everything is there. Compete beats skill. Compete is determination. Compete is going full 60. If every guy can bring that every night, that high level of determination that’s expected of us, then we’d be a force to be reckoned with.” Jonathan Bernier: “Consistency — that’s the most important thing. Ev- ery team can win every night if you’re showing up and putting the work in and focused on the details of the game. That’s where we got to get to — consistency — and make sure we’re ready every game.” Peter Holland: “Just consistently more competitive. I can speak for myself in that. I feel like some games I’m hounding the puck and some nights I’m not. I feel like as a team we can do a better job of consistently controlling the game, playing our style. Constistently being more competitive.” Tyler Bozak: “Just to have more wins. As of late our power play hasn’t been good; that’s something you need to be better at. We have to score some more goals. We’re not giving run support for our goalies. It’s tough to win games when you score one goal . . . we have to start putting some in the back of the net.”