The Maple Leafs lost 5-4 to the Utah Mammoth on Tuesday at the Delta Center in Salt Lake City. Wednesday is a travel day for the team with no media availability.
The Leafs managed to break even on a challenging road trip, but Jim Hiller is not satisfied.
“No. No. No. No,” the coach said. “No, I’m not.”
When the Leafs left Toronto for games against the defending Western Conference champion Vegas Golden Knights, defending Presidents’ Trophy winning Colorado Avalanche and a fast-rising Utah Mammoth team, three points seemed like it would be a good result.
So, why was Hiller left with a bitter taste in his mouth as he prepared to fly home?
“Well, because we want to win,” he explained. “I mean, we could’ve got five points. So, when [you] say, ‘Are we good with three?’ No, not really. If you would’ve said, ‘Are you happy with five?’ We would’ve said, ‘Absolutely.’”
The Leafs certainly had their chances to gain more points. Toronto squandered a 3-0 lead en route to a shootout loss in Vegas to open the trip. After an impressive win in Denver, the Leafs fell into a three-goal hole in Utah before mounting a comeback and coming painfully close to nabbing at least one point against the Mammoth.
“Could’ve made this a great trip,” lamented Hiller, who held a full team skate Tuesday morning, instead of the usual optional, to try and keep his players locked in after a couple days of bonding in Park City, Utah. “In the end, you know, it’s okay.”
That sentiment was echoed inside the dressing room.
“As a whole, I mean, I think it’s okay,” defenceman Morgan Rielly said. “I mean, you split, essentially. You get three points. You want to try to get four. I mean, we have a chance in Vegas to get an extra one. We have a chance here to get back in there for a point. So, I mean, I think it’s alright, but we leave here not feeling great about it.”
Perhaps Rielly was flashing back to last year when the Leafs also nabbed three points during this same Western swing with a similar outcome in each game. Back in January, Toronto started with a surprising overtime win in Denver before falling behind early in Utah and losing to the Mammoth in regulation. The Leafs wrapped up the trip by blowing a lead in Vegas and falling in overtime.
Toronto went on to miss the playoffs and finish fifth last leading to a big roster turnover in the summer.
“Three really good teams,” said winger Jack Roslovic, who is one of many newcomers this season. “I think there were some ups and downs. I think we, overall, battled through it pretty well. It’s just the little mishaps here, little mishaps [there], that kind of sting. But I think the good thing about that is it’s nothing glaring.”
Well, there was one glaring issue on the trip.
“Second period, no good,” said Hiller. “That’s three second periods on this trip that were no good.”
The Leafs got outshot 44 to 19 in the middle stanza of the last three games while allowing seven goals. It provided something for the coaching staff to ponder on the trip home on Wednesday. The answer isn’t obvious.
“We’re going to have to find that out,” Hiller said. “The home team will push and we just haven’t been able to make a play or settle it down, get clean through the neutral zone, have a forecheck shift. We’ve just bobbled [the puck] and allowed them to kind of go one, two, three on us. We’ve got to fix that.”
Hiller doesn’t have much time to sort things out. The Leafs will be looking for their first divisional win of the season (0-2-0) on Thursday when they host the Buffalo Sabres.
Toronto will play four of its next five games at home with four games in this stretch coming against opponents that missed the playoffs last season.
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All five of Utah’s goals on Tuesday had one thing in common.
“We should clean up the puck play,” Rielly said. “If you look at their goals, they’re off the rush, so there’s something going on there that we have to fix. We do a good job at the end to get back in it, but ultimately, you know, it’s a tough position to be in.”
The tone was set in the first period when Mammoth winger Daniil But danced past Rielly in the neutral zone before beating Anthony Stolarz high to open the scoring.
“He made a good play,” said Rielly, who finished minus-two while logging a season low 16:09. “Obviously, that’s on me.”
The Leafs were playing their first game of the season without shutdown defenceman Chris Tanev, who is on injured reserve and will miss at least two more games with an undisclosed upper-body issue.
“Different parts of the game, it looked like pairs worked, and then there were parts of the game where it looked like pairs didn’t work,” Hiller said. “But that wasn’t just the D. Again, that’s everybody. Unless all five guys are on, it makes it difficult for anybody, whether it’s a forward line or a D pairing.”
“The puck management, you know, kind of shot ourselves in the foot a bit,” Roslovic said.
Hiller opted to dress seven defencemen in Utah, as he did in Colorado on Saturday, with Marshall Rifai making his season debut and playing just his fourth career NHL game.
“I thought Marshall played pretty well,” Hiller said. “He didn’t play a lot (9:04), but he looked comfortable out there. He didn’t look nervous. If you look at the minutes, I think there’s a couple of guys who were maybe in single digits. Most everybody else — I think I had Willy [Nylander] and Auston [Matthews] at 20 — was about where they should be.”
With Tanev out, Troy Stecher is the only Leafs defenceman dressing who is a plus player this season.
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Stolarz allowed five goals on 28 shots to suffer his first loss of the season.
“Obviously, I put us in a tough situation,” the goalie acknowledged. “Probably want two or three of those goals back. And, you know, not the way you want to go and end the road trip, but l thought our third period was really good and just the resilience that this group has shown. I know I got better and will be better in the future.”
Stolarz was playing his third game of the season and first since allowing four goals in an overtime win over the Nashville Predators on Oct. 6.
“They’re a fast team,” Stolarz said of the Mammoth. “They have a lot of offensive, skill players who can make plays and they got a couple guys that can shoot the puck. And your job as a goalie is just to kind of make a timely save and that was something that I really didn’t do until the third period. Just kind of put us in a deep hole.”
One of the goals Stolarz wanted back was a Dylan Guenther shot that snuck between his arm and body.
“Just kind of overextended and went off my arm,” he said.
Hiller refused to blame Stolarz for the defeat.
“He was alright,” the coach said. “He gave us a chance at the end. In the third period, he made a couple of saves. They scored five rush goals, right? That’s not just Anthony. That’s different people making mistakes prior to it getting to him. There’s probably a couple he wants back, but that happens.”
Stolarz did pick up an assist, his second of the season, by making a nice pass to set up a John Tavares power-play goal.
But when the dust settled on the night, Stolarz saw his save percentage dip to .875 on the season. What will he focus on moving forward?
“The third period,” said Stolarz, who turned aside all 12 shots he faced in the final frame. “I thought I was pretty solid in the third period. And, you know, it’s the life of a goaltender. You just kind of have to put it behind you and move on. I’m sure [goalie coach] Curtis [Sanford] and I will look at some film, do some drills and whatnot. But, you know, it’s an 84-game season, and you just have to look to respond.”
Toronto will play a back-to-back set early next week (Monday against San Jose and Tuesday at Columbus) so Stolarz likely won’t have to wait too long for his next chance.
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Kirill Marchenko helped lead the comeback push.
“The third period, probably, was Marchenko’s best period since the first game,” Hiller said. “That was clear. That was really a positive sign for us. I thought he was pretty dangerous. You saw him carry the puck through the neutral zone, use his speed, his skill set. That was really maybe a positive jumping-off spot for him going back home.”
Marchenko, who was acquired from the Blue Jackets in a blockbuster deal on the eve of the season, also picked up an assist on a goal by Roslovic in the second period.
“The confidence is definitely coming for him,” said Roslovic, who also played with the Russian in Columbus. “You can tell in the last couple games, you know, he’s moving out there. He’s flying out there.”
Despite still settling in with his new team and being stuck on just one goal (on the power play), Marchenko has hit the scoresheet in six of seven games.
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The Leafs penalty kill capped a perfect road trip by killing off all four Mammoth chances on Tuesday. Utah entered the game with the most power-play goals scored this season.
“Our penalty kill, probably the whole trip, if you have to look at that, was outstanding,” Hiller said. “Maybe [Tuesday] was the best night. I thought we did a great job. [Assistant coach] John [Gruden] had a great plan going in. We executed it. Willy had the shorthanded breakaway. That was really, really good.”
The Leafs lead the NHL in penalty kill percentage (95.8) and have allowed just one goal to an opposing power play through seven games.
“We’re moving our feet,” centre Nick Paul said on Tuesday morning. “We’re talking a lot. We’re on the same page. So, yeah, I mean, it’s still early in the season, but we plan on just continuing to build every single game.”
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Lines to start Tuesday’s game:
F
Marchenko - Matthews - Roslovic
Cowan - Tavares - Nylander
McKenna - Paul - Sissons
Duhaime - Blueger
D
McCabe - Raddysh
Rielly - Stecher
Ekman-Larsson - Blankenburg
Rifai
G
Stolarz starts
Bobrovsky