It hurts to be a Leafs fan
But at least Carlyle will make it hurt to be a Leaf. Feschuk on loss to Bruins,
Things we learned before, during and after the Maple Leafs’ 5-4 loss to the Boston Bruins on Tuesday night.
1. Randy Carlyle is the first Leafs employee in recent memory to give a halfway accurate assessment of the team’s weaknesses.
Fans should thank the hockey gods that the new coach spent part of his morning-skate calling the Leafs’ recent home-ice performances against the Boston Bruins “embarrassing.”
The Bruins had decimated the Leafs by a combined score of 13-3 in two previous visits to the Air Canada Centre this season, men-versus-boys mismatches.
“To look at the record — we are embarrassed. We want to make a change,” Carlyle said. “We have to play at a higher level.”
The Leafs did just that on Tuesday night, sticking close to the defending Stanley Cup champions until the final buzzer.
And while Carlyle pointed out some positives in his post-game comments — “Any time you score four goals, you should feel good about your offensive side” — he also offered some refreshingly frank assessments of the grim reality. He pointed out that the Leafs need to win “more one-onone battles,” and “weren’t strong enough on the puck.” He pointed out that Phil Kessel, though he had a goal and an assist, also put in a shift in which the Bruins managed a momentum-swinging two goals in a 41-second span that gave the visitors a 3-2 lead. Kessel finished at minus-2.
“(Improving) the compete level is what’s going to turn this hockey club around,” Carlyle said.
2. Final score aside, the Leafs reside a few compete levels below the Bruins. Examples? Toronto’s forwards generally stuck to the perimeter while the Bruins relentlessly drove to the net. (Kessel looked so afraid of encountering Bruins defenceman Zdeno Chara that he specialized in bail-out flick shots that had almost zero chance of success). The Toronto defence looked helpless to stop the stream of tough, fast visitors to the crease. 3. Mikhail Grabovski, who scored the third-period goal that made it 5-4, is a fine second-line centre. He appears to be universally loved by his teammates. And, when you consider the merits of the five-year, $27.5 million contract extension that was announced Tuesday, there is an argument to be made that, given the slim pickings in this summer’s free-agent market, he’s good value. But, to this eye, it’s hard to imagine he’ll be a key piece of a some-day juggernaut in Leafland. Consider the point at which this season truly unravelled for the Leafs, a February in which the reeling squad lost 10 of 14 games. Where was Grabovski? He went 14 straight games without a goal when his team needed him most. Worse, instead of blaming the name on the back of his jersey, he pointed to the name on his stick, specifically Easton, the manufacturer that reportedly serviced him with 145 different twigs in search of one that would suit the Belarusian. 4. Brian Burke is showing signs of strain. The Leafs GM drove Hogtown Internet traffic on Tuesday morning after he hung up on a talk-radio host who, at the end of an otherwise innocuous interview, dared suggest that Burke might be the next high-profile Leafs employee out of work. Burke called that line of talk “a nice little cheap shot,” not to mention “ignorant” and “gutless.” The host’s work was none of the above. The GM, as in his recent rants against the evils of the trade deadline and Toronto’s 24/7 media culture, is at least succeeding at one thing. He is oneupping his nemesis Don Cherry at raking in millions to spout nonsense. The difference is, Burke is paid to deliver wins, not web hits. 5. The Kessel trade still hurts. Tyler Seguin has met Kessel 11 times now. Seguin — just one of the fruits of the Burke deal that brought Toronto its best perimeter floater since Vince Carter — has outscored his Leaf counterpart 7-3, including 2-1 on Tuesday. Never mind that the Brampton-bred Seguin, age 20 to Kessel’s 24, is only hopping aboard a skyward-bound improvement curve. Never mind that Kessel, most scouts will tell you, has likely peaked. The Bruins also got the draft pick that became Dougie Hamilton, the kind of uber-prospect defenceman every NHL franchise covets. They missed Kessel so much they won the Cup. 6. It hurts to be a Leaf fan, but Carlyle is going to make it hurt to be a Leaf. You get the sense the new coach, if he doesn’t succeed in demanding better from his players, will break a few trying.