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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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TORONTO – Hours before the Toronto Maple Leafs’ first game of the season without top blueliner Morgan Rielly, Mike Babcock said of deciding on his shuffled defence pairs, “my plan is to play 60 good minutes like this and not have to make any adjustments.”

Thursday’s game against the New York Rangers didn’t go to plan at all. Toronto was sluggish out of the gate and fell behind early, eventually falling 5-2. Their retooled back end struggled all over the ice, and it took one period – and giving up 19 shots – for Babcock to alter his pairings.

After beating the Rangers in New York six days ago and riding high on a three-game win streak, the defeat sent the Maple Leafs back to earth.

“We’ve been really hot lately and it’s probably time for a reality check I guess,” said Jake Gardiner, who played a team-high 26:14 in Rielly’s absence. “When your top defenceman goes down, different guys have to step up. We can be better in all the areas.”

Toronto’s blue line looked disorganized for much of the night, one day after Matt Hunwick said it was the consistency of the pairs that had been a key to that group making strides lately. Gardiner started on the top pair with Nikita Zaitsev, but by the second frame was back with Connor Carrick. Originally skating with Frank Corrado, who hasn't played an NHL game since Nov. 12, Carrick was on his heels most of the game, finishing with a team-low minus-9 in Corsi percentage. Corrado played the fewest defensive minutes - 11:36 - and took two penalties in less than four minutes in the second, but thought his overall game was “not bad.” Babcock opted not to assess Corrado’s play afterwards, saying he would watch the tape back first.

But as critical a piece as Rielly is, and as much as playing without him clearly impacted the whole team, Babcock saw a laundry list of problems with his group that went far beyond one player.

“I don’t think Rielly made us not compete hard enough tonight. Or not take care of the puck or not stop on defence,” Babcock said. “The back-end was in trouble lots. We gave up a lot tonight. We weren’t very good.”

The Maple Leafs allowed 41 shots to fly at Frederik Andersen, and he kept them in the game with just a one-goal deficit entering the third period. Zach Hyman’s short-handed goal is what pulled Toronto to within one, but the early lapses could not be overcome.

“We’ve got to start stronger,” Hyman said. “We weren’t on top on their D. Freddie kept us in the game for most of the [night] there. We have to be better on the forecheck and play better on the cycle.”

Gardiner admitted too that the team hung Andersen out to dry a number of times, and perhaps nowhere more than on Michael Grabner’s short-handed breakaway goal, a dagger he zipped past Andersen late in the third.

“Grabner gets one to two breakaways a game [so] we should have been aware of him on the ice,” Gardiner said of his former teammate's first short-handed goal of the season. “It was also kind of a broken play and they obviously made a heck of a play too.”

Looking at the lead-in to the game, Babcock acknowledged an error on his end, opting not to stage a full practice after Toronto’s comeback win over the Buffalo Sabres on Tuesday. It seems they will make up for it Friday.

“We didn’t skate yesterday so we should have been fresh and we should have had jump but obviously I shouldn’t have done that,” Babcock said. “We weren’t mentally sharp [tonight] so we’ll get that fixed tomorrow and get ready for Ottawa.”


Takeaways

Power struggles: The Maple Leafs’ power play had been one of the team's best assets on their 9-1-1 run heading into Thursday night, but that unit wasn't doing anything to help them against New York. Toronto went 0-for-2 with the man advantage, the first time since January 1 they have not registered a power play goal. Gardiner has been the team’s blue liner on the top power play, but Carrick took his spot early on and ended up giving the puck away at the point for a Rangers’ short-handed chance. On the second power play, Grabner got behind the Maple Leafs off a great pass from Kevin Hayes to seal the New York victory. It was an uncharacteristically poor performance from those units, especially compared to the success they had (2-for-4) against the Rangers last week.

Hercules Hyman: No one does more for Toronto’s fourth-ranked penalty kill than Zach Hyman. He is a relentless forechecker with an active stick who generates more short-handed chances than anyone else – but had no short-handed goals to his credit. That changed on Thursday, and it was all Hyman’s doing. He forechecked his way into the offensive zone, lifted the stick of the Rangers’ defenceman to take control of the puck and brilliantly waited out Henrik Lundqvist before roofing it over top of him. Toronto’s kill went 4-for-4 against the Rangers, with Hyman carrying the workload among forwards at 4:23. The Maple Leafs have gone four games without a power play goal against.

Rookie moves: Mitch Marner doesn’t miss often when he gets a prime scoring opportunity, but his puck luck was lacking Thursday. More explosive than any of Toronto’s other forwards, Marner had a chance to go top shelf on Lundqvist in the first but missed just high – he ended up following the play and feeding Tyler Bozak for a game-tying goal. On another chance, his shot barely missed the open net and the Rangers took the play right back the other way for a goal. Meanwhile William Nylander, who was a standout in Toronto’s win over the Rangers last week, had a rough night defensively, most obviously when he lost his man and saw him score New York’s opening goal.

Fourth line on fire? Babcock said he thought his fourth line of Frederik Gauthier, Matt Martin and Nikita Soshnikov was the team’s best against New York. Gauthier was the Maple Leafs’ top faceoff man, winning 9 of 14 draws, and Martin drew the penalty late in the third that gave Toronto an opportunity to tie the game. Their possession numbers were decent, with each hovering at or near 50 Corsi-for percentage, and they were the only line that didn’t have a goal against. Coming off Tuesday’s performance against Buffalo where Martin generated his third goal of the season, that trio has been quietly building some solid chemistry.
 
Next game: Toronto will see another familiar face when the Ottawa Senators come to town Saturday. The Maple Leafs defeated them last Saturday on the road.