Loss keeps Leafs mired in cellar
Wild escape with a victory at ACC as Toronto struggles to snap out of funk with six losses in its past eight games
Look out, there’s the basement.
The Maple Leafs, who are trying to convince themselves and everyone else that they can contend for a playoff spot, find themselves in last place in the Atlantic Division after a 3-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild in a rare Wednesday night game at the Air Canada Centre.
While the Leafs have found the basement to be their second home in recent years, they were hoping to move out. They showed signs early in the season that the rebuilding program — draft high and play youth — had promise.
But they’ve hit a few road blocks; Wednesday’s was their sixth loss in their past eight games (2-4-2).
Tyler Bozak and Ben Smith scored for the Leafs, who are 3-5-5 in one-goal games.
Chris Stewart, Jason Zucker and Eric Staal scored for Minnesota, which got 35 saves from standout goaltender Devan Dubnyk.
There is no defining theme to the losses, other than perhaps the effort that was shown by the young squad has waned and has become inconsistent, although they worked hard against Minnesota.
Coach Mike Babcock has relegated rookie William Nylander to fourth-line duty, in large part because Nikita Soshnikov has outplayed him.
“Someone else is playing in his spot and they’re playing well,” said Babcock. “He’s playing lots of different spots and right now just — we have 10 guys for nine spots and right this works for us and that’s what we’re doing.”
But by the third period, with the Leafs looking for offence, Nylander had been restored to Nazem Kadri’s wing.
Part of the reason for the Leafs drop has been a light schedule. Wednesday’s game was their only weekday game, sandwiched between Saturday’s overtime loss in Vancouver and a visit this Saturday to Boston.
The standings, even with the Leafs fairly idle, remain incredibly tight.
“It’s crazy,” said Nylander. “With the start we had — we lost games we should have won — and that would put us in a better spot. It’s tight, but it makes it fun for sure.”
It was the 25th game of the Leafs’ schedule, the end of another five-game segment.
They have games-in-hand on the teams in front of them, and Babcock said he wasn’t worried about the position in the standings at this juncture.
“If you just stay focused on what you’re doing, things work out in the end,” said Babcock. “We’ve played five games in 14 days and now I think we play five games coming up in the next seven days. When the games are all even I’ll look at it more.”
Things were just as tight in the Wild’s home in the West.
“It’s like Round 2 of a golf tournament,” said Wild coach Bruce Boudreau. “Everything is really tight. By Round 3, it starts separating. Then you get into Round 4 and the cream comes to the top.
“I guarantee every team and every coach is looking at every game and seeing how their divisional opponents are doing.”
The Leafs came out looking like they were going to tame the Wild in the opening five minutes. Each line had a series of scoring chances, but Dubnyk held the fort for Minnesota.
But by the end of 20 minutes, it was 2-1 Minnesota.
The Leafs might have opened the game up to a kind of track meet, but Minnesota turned things around.
Zucker was the beneficiary of Mikael Granlund’s forechecking that seemed to stymie Connor Carrick and Kadri behind the Leafs net. Zucker scored at 8:42 for a 1-0 lead.
Then Chris Stewart, the pride of Scarborough, scored on a breakaway for a 2-0 Minnesota lead at 14:22.
Track-meet hockey wasn’t on Babcock’s mind, but that’s what he got.
It worked to the Leafs’ advantage when Smith pounded in a rebound off a Kadri rush to cut the Wild lead to 2-1heading into the second period.
“It was a bit of a slow start for us,” Kadri said between periods. “We weren’t happy with that.” Minnesota carried a 3-2 lead into the third period.
Bozak stripped Minnesota defenceman Matt Dumba of the puck and went backhand on Dubnyk to get the Leafs back within one before the second was over.