Leafs’ season is halfway over, but the rebuild isn’t
Players progress, but team idles in East’s basement
T ORONTO • Ha l f way through the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first season under a team rebuild, the outlook for the remaining half is shaping up to be as equally mixed as the first.
Opening the season with a 1- 7- 2 record, t he t eam went through a steep learning curve under new head coach Mike Babcock. A new system and structure was introduced to help set the framework for how the Leafs were expected to play.
“I think at the time, it was so new that there was a lot of instruction early on, but everyone’s pretty much got it right now,” defenceman Jake Gardiner said. “Through the season we’ll go over the tape after certain games to reinforce things, especially if there are recurring bad habits.”
Despite the slow start, the Leafs were highly lauded for the way they competed on the ice. The struggles boiled down to two factors: Poor goaltending on the part of incumbent starter Jonathan Bernier, and special teams issues that saw the Leafs ranked near the bottom of the league at the end of October.
Slowly but surely, however, the Leafs started to get rewarded for their play. Netminder James Reimer performed well in the month of November and special teams improved, leading to a much better 7- 4- 3 month of November.
In the beginning of December, the Leafs tinkered with their lines to jumpstart their offence. A shuff l i ng of l eft- wingers appeared to ignite the Leafs’ offence. Toronto averaged 2.86 goals per game in a month where they went 6- 42 and James van Riemsdyk recorded a career- high seven- game point streak that spilled into January.
At the midway point of the season, the Leafs are 16-18-7. They hold the thirdworst record in the National Hockey League’s Eastern Conference heading i nto Thursday night’s games. They have lost three consecutive games.
The Leafs cancelled practice on Thursday and opted for an off- ice workout. They also reviewed some video after a 3-1 loss Wednesday to the league’s worst team, the Columbus Blue Jackets.
On paper, the Leafs did some things right in that game. They outperformed Columbus with 94 shot attempts compared to just 50 from the Jackets. But the first period for the Leafs was slow, and the quality of the chances weren’t great.
“We’ve got to fix our preparation. To me, you can’t be chasing the game — you should have been jumping all over the other team.” Babcock said on Thursday. “As much as we can say we outchanced them, outshot them, catch- up hockey is losing hockey and we’ve got to start on time.”
Maple Leafs management is trying to add accountability to a player’s conduct both on and off the ice.
“Evidently last night after the game, we weren’t as accessible to the media as we should have been,” Babcock said in an interview on TSN 1050 radio.
There weren’t any formal complaints about the lack of availability, but being proactively aware of it is a stark contrast to how things were handled in years past.
Looking ahead to t he second half of the season, the Leafs face some interesting challenges. Much of the second half will be played without their leading scorer. Van Riemsdyk recorded 29 points in 40 games and will be out of the lineup for six to eight weeks with a broken foot. With the NHL trade deadline set for Feb. 29, it’s only a matter of time before some players are shopped to other teams in exchange for draft picks and prospects.
The rebuild is going to take time. Currently in the midst of Phase 1, many are anxiously awaiting the next steps. The Leafs host the Chicago Blackhawks on Friday, one of many teams they have been trying to emulate as they look to rebuild into a contender.
“Just look at the 10 years before there — there was a lot of pain there,” Babcock said, referring to Chicago’s years before they won the Stanley Cup in 2010. “I’m hoping ( here) the pain isn’t as long.”