Leafs denied bid for playoff clincher
Eastern Conference race gets a bit closer after loss to Islanders
TORONTO — To be honest, Nazem Kadri does not remember a whole lot about the last time the Toronto Maple Leafs were in the playoffs. Maybe it was because he was more of a Montreal Canadiens fan back then. Or maybe it has something to do with the amount of time that has elapsed since then.
“I wasn’t even in high school,” joked Kadri, who was 13 in 2004.
Yes, it has been a very long time since the Leafs made the playoffs. That wait got a little longer after Thursday’s 5-3 loss to the New York Islanders.
The Leafs had an opportunity to clinch a playoff berth for the first time in eight years — or at least move a step closer to that goal Thursday night. All they had to do was defeat the Islanders and have the Winnipeg Jets lose in regulation.
Neither happened. And so, with four games remaining and only five points separating them from the ninth-place Jets, who defeated the Carolina Hurricanes 4-3 in overtime Thursday, the Leafs’ season got a little bit more interesting.
A complete collapse still seems unlikely. But with the sixth-place Ottawa Senators now one point back and the seventh-place Islanders trailing by just two points, the Leafs are in danger of losing ground in the Eastern Conference standings unless they can find a way to focus on the games remaining in the regular season rather than look ahead to the playoffs.
“It has nothing to do with the playoff spot,” Leafs defenceman Cody Franson said of Thursday’s loss. “For whatever reason, we got away from our system a little bit and we’re going to have to stop the bleeding here and get back to what made us successful. But our lack of success in the last couple of games has nothing to do with thinking we have a playoff spot. We don’t work that way. We work one day at a time.”
The Leafs play in Ottawa on Saturday, where they will once again have a chance to clinch. Before that happens, they will spend the day practising and watching video to understand what aspects of their game have been slipping.
This is not just based on what happened Thursday, in which the Leafs blew a 2-0 lead by allowing five straight goals. The cracks have been showing for a while now. The Leafs got away with recent wins against the Canadiens and New Jersey Devils without playing their best hockey and then were blown out Tuesday by the Washington Capitals.
Against the Islanders, the same bad habits that have hindered the team all year — turnovers, defensive lapses, lack of shots — resurfaced.
“We didn’t really have much of anything tonight,” said the Leafs’ Joffrey Lupul, who scored the game’s first goal when he drove the net with the puck. “We never really were able to turn the momentum, they were beating us to pucks, they were hungry offensively.
“We were making awful, awful turnovers, especially when we went up 2-0 in the first period. We were throwing the puck in the middle of the ice and giving them a chance to have success. Again, we’re going to fix it. We’re going to sit down and we already talked. There’s going to be a lot of video tomorrow and we’ll get back to basics and fix it.”
Head coach Randy Carlyle said the players were guilty of being too cute rather than trying to grind out a win.
But he laid part of the blame on the coaching staff, saying it was up to them to point out what the players have been doing wrong.
“We’re a better team than what we displayed here,” said Carlyle. “We were fortunate to score on our first two shots and thought we were on our way and then stopped. It was very similar to a game that we played against this team earlier in the year.”
The game Carlyle was alluding to was a 7-4 loss to the Islanders on Jan. 24, in which the Leafs allowed five straight goals after being ahead 3-1 in the first period. Like that previous game, John Tavares was once again a major factor in the Islanders’ attack, scoring twice and picking up an assist.
The Leafs, however, were looking internally after this loss.
“This is adversity,” said Franson. “It’s learning from the mistakes that we made last year and how we got out of it earlier in the year. Take it one step at a time and dig ourselves out of this hole that we’re in. A lot of our mistakes are easily correctable. We just need to pay attention.”