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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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TORONTO — Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe went searching for positives Wednesday morning, trying to find the good in his team’s most abysmal loss of the season.

Ahead of a rematch with Ottawa after Monday’s shocking 6-5 overtime loss, Keefe said his players need to focus on the kind of play that has the team sitting atop the North Division standings, not a blown four-goal lead to the Senators.

“The reality is the same team that gave up the lead [on Monday] is the same team that built the lead,” Keefe told reporters on a Zoom call Wednesday after the Leafs’ morning skate.

“That's really what we're looking for here tonight, is to just refocus. We need to be more like the team that started that game and more like the team that we've been for the majority of the season that has us in first place in our division.”

Toronto looked to be in total control over the last-place Senators in Monday’s game, leading them 5-1 with time winding down in the second period. That’s when a turnover by John Tavares on the power play turned into a shorthanded goal for Nick Paul, and Ottawa closed the gap to 5-2 with nine seconds remaining in the frame. 

It wound up being the first of five unanswered goals Ottawa would score, a crescendo that Toronto looked wholly incapable of slowing down while letting a point slip away.

The Leafs gave up two goals on breakaways – one to Ottawa defenceman Artem Zub coming out of the penalty box 41 seconds into the third and one to Evgenii Dadonov for his overtime winner - and they were credited with 18 giveaways in the game to the Senators’ six.

That level of sloppiness didn’t sit well with Toronto when players and coaches convened on Tuesday to dissect the defeat on video.

“The amount of turnovers we had were unacceptable,” said Mitch Marner. “We gave them life. We talked about that, and we know what we need to do to be better. We have to control the puck more, keep it in our hands more. There's got to be more situational awareness."

“We've been slipping a little bit and I think it just caught up with us,” added Keefe. “It was situational awareness-type stuff, and we've just got to be more responsible and recognize what's happening in the game and manage it better.”

That will need to be the case if Toronto expects to rebound. This is the first two-game losing streak the Leafs have been on all season, and they’ll have to contend with Ottawa twice more over the next two nights. 

While the Senators are sitting 31st overall in the league, they are the only team to boast a winning record against Toronto, having beaten them once already in come-from-behind fashion on Jan. 15 and accounting for two of the five losses the Leafs have suffered this season.

“I don't think it was a lack of respect or anything like that [shown on Monday],” said Zach Hyman. “I think if it's 5-1 in that situation against any team, doesn't matter where they are in the standings, that game should be over and done with. We made mental lapses in the game and even before it was 5-1, we didn't play our best, and we gave them opportunities to crawl back.”

Hyman’s line with John Tavares and William Nylander bore the brunt of the criticism for not just Toronto’s inability to halt the Senators’ comeback but for failing to contribute anything offensively during the Leafs’ free fall.

The only production from that trio all game was an assist by Tavares on Auston Matthews’ power-play goal, and they finished minus-1 as a group. 

Generating offence at even strength has been a season-long problem for Tavares and Nylander (they have four goals there combined on the year) and Tavares has one lone five-on-five marker through 16 outings has continued to raise eyebrows.

“You can tell he's fighting it a little bit right now,” acknowledged Keefe. “But I focus on a lot of the positive things that have come out of this game to me. We've asked all of our players to be more responsible and aware defensively, and he's been terrific in that regard. And I think while production offensively is down a little bit here, also goals against while he's on the ice has been down. When you give up less defensively, you don't actually have to score as much offensively. We've seen some of that throughout our team as we're trying to find that balance.”

Keefe opted to keep the Leafs fresh for their back-to-back by not doing any on-ice sessions Tuesday, and he won’t be making any changes from Monday’s lineup for Wednesday’s rematch.

According to Hyman, Toronto has been leaning on the veteran presence of Joe Thornton and Zach Bogosian and the like to move past their frustration, and embrace the opportunity for redemption. 

“[Those guys are] invaluable; they bring a ton of experience,” Hyman said. “They each have a unique energy that they bring to the rink and especially after a game like that, you need that [positivity]. You address the issues so there's no elephant in the room. You hit it head on and then have a positive mentality that you can get ready to play. Those guys have all been in situations like this before, [they’ve] played in games like that and you’re able to reset and to get back on the right track and those guys bring that mentality.”

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Maple Leafs projected lineup against Ottawa:

Thornton-Matthews-Marner
Hyman-Tavares-Nylander
Mikheyev-Kerfoot-Engvall
Vesey-Boyd-Spezza

Rielly-Brodie
Muzzin-Holl
Dermott-Bogosian

 

Andersen starts

Hutchinson