Leafs welcome busy spurt

Three games in four nights before break

Finally, a chunk of the season the Toronto Maple Leafs can sink their teeth into.

A game in Detroit against the Red Wings on Saturday night, followed by a homeand-home set with the New Jersey Devils on Monday and Tuesday, awaits the Leafs before they head into the allstar break.

Plenty of hockey will come once the Leafs return, starting on Feb. 7 at home against the Carolina Hurricanes, but the next several days mark the first time the Leafs will have played three in four nights since Dec. 4-7.

“We’re excited to play three in four,” veteran centre Jason Spezza said after practice on Friday at the Ford Performance Centre. “It has been a bit of a strange schedule for us, so to get a few games in a block will be good in terms of momentum and chemistry.

“We want to be an elite team, and elite teams are consistent. We’d like to have a good finish to send us into the break feeling good.”

While we understand that no games are won on paper, there’s a great opportunity for the Leafs to have that positive feeling, as the Wings and Devils are out of the playoff picture and struggle on a nightly basis to keep the puck out of the net.

Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe wants goalie Petr Mrazek to get into a groove, considering the club is going to have to use him more beginning in February, and Mrazek will start Saturday and again on Tuesday in New Jersey.

Jack Campbell, who will head to Las Vegas for the all-star festivities next weekend with teammate Auston Matthews, will start at home against the Devils Monday.

Mrazek, in battling a groin issue, has played in just five games. He was sharp in his most recent start, making 27 saves in a win against the New York Islanders last Saturday.

“We’re going to need Petr a lot coming up,” Keefe said. “Getting him this game (against the Wings) better prepares him for (the set with the Devils) versus having a longer stretch between games. We think trying to get him into a little bit of a rhythm is important.”

Keefe will stick with the new-look lines that debuted against the Anaheim Ducks on Wednesday, meaning that Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander again will play on separate trios.

There is going to be an area of concentration for the Leafs in the three games prior to the break, and considering the opposition, they could be put to a certain test.

You would think the chances are high that the Leafs will have a two-goal lead at some point in their next three games. If so, holding them will be the focus.

When the Leafs beat the Ducks 4-3 in a shootout, it marked the fifth time in seven games that Toronto was unable to keep at least a twogoal lead.

“It’s a balance for us of being too passive when we have the lead, and also making sure that we’re covering the inside of the net, not giving free chances,” Spezza said of what has unfolded in recent games.

“It’s part of the learning curve of a year, getting comfortable in those situations. Just because we’ve had a few get away from us, it doesn’t change our mindset too much.”

True, and in those games, the Leafs found their footing to win three. In another, they got a point in an overtime loss to in Colorado. Only in New York against the Rangers last Wednesday did the Leafs not earn something tangible after letting a twogoal lead slip away.

A growth in maturity, in Spezza’s view, has helped the Leafs keep their composure to win those games.

“It’s easy to get down when you give up a lead,” Spezza said. “But the group has been really resilient this year in terms of when things haven’t gone the way we want them to go, just being able to flip the switch quick — whether it’s with a practice day and moving forward, or whether it’s collecting yourselves heading into an overtime — there’s been a lot more of a mature approach toward winning games. Some nights it’s going to be clinical, where you’re dominating teams and everybody’s happy and it looks good.

“Other nights, it’s going to be a little bit ugly and you find a way to win. You still drag those points out and you gain confidence.

“That has been the biggest step for us, is the focus really seems to be on just winning hockey games. When we’re doing that, we’re at our best.”