Rielly shines as Leafs’ struggles continue
There were more than a dozen scouts in attendance at the Air Canada Centre Tuesday to watch another listless effort by the Maple Leafs in a 5-4 loss to the New York Rangers.
One of them had a very salient point about the Leafs and their bushel full of troubles this season; he said your best players should be your goalie, you defence and your centres. And when your best player is a winger — “you’re in trouble.”
The Leafs’ supposed best player is winger Phil Kessel, and while the entire team outside of goalie James Reimer and defenceman Morgan Rielly was struggling Tuesday night, Kessel produced a particularly confounding effort. How bad was it? Coach Peter Horachek dropped him to the fourth line in the third period in what appeared to be one of the most-embarrassing moments for the certified 30-goal scorer.
Horachek explained he was merely trying to get Kessel away from a matchup with Rangers top defencemen Ryan McDonagh and Dan Girardi.
There was no denying, though, that Kessel’s ice time was being hacked away in order to get him off the ice. He’d been at 7:20 in time on ice after two periods, and with the line drop from Horachek, finished at 12:57 for the game.
That was just 18 seconds over his season low of 12:39, set in Columbus on Halloween.
“We were awful, we expect more out of his line and more out of him,” said Horachek, who also had the ultimate call-out, saying his team’s “give a (expletive) meter has to be higher.”
“That’s not the way we’ve been talking about work ethic. They (the Rangers) totally outworked us in the first two periods.”
Actually, it was more like 50 minutes rather than 40, but Horachek opened a raw nerve there; he also stapled a few other seats to the bench, with Joffrey Lupul at 12:06 and Tyler Bozak at 14:12.
Kessel, fair or not, has failed to take the reins and lead the Leafs out of this troubling time (16 losses in their last 20 games).
Nowhere was Kessel more suspect than when the Leafs gave up a shorthanded goal to fall behind 4-2 in the second period.
The sniper — and he hasn’t been much of that lately either — was outworked twice on the same shift, in- cluding at the halfboards in the Leafs zone, just before the goal.
The short-handed goal marked the Leafs’ NHL-leading ninth goal given up when they have the man advantage. Ex-Leaf Dominic Moore, a penalty kill specialist, bagged the goal on ashot that eluded a screened Reimer.
But the details matter less for the Leafs right now than the basics like work ethic and compete level.
And for added measure, Kessel was also on the ice for four of the five Rangers’ goals, including the gamewinner from Mats Zuccarello with about five minutes left in the game.
It will be interesting to see now, with the Leafs heading out on the road for a pair of tough games against the Islanders and Canadiens, whether Horachek responds to the unacceptable effort from his top line.