Auston Matthews shoots the puck against Thomas Chabot at Canadian Tire Centre on March 14, 2021 in Ottawa.Matt Zambonin/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images
The Maple Leafs flew to Ottawa on Sunday morning, rare travel on the day of a road game. They brandished their throwback green and white jerseys four days before St. Patrick’s Day and it seemed to get their opponent’s Irish up. They gave up goals in pairs and had a player lose a fight so badly that he had to take a breather for a while presumably to let the cobwebs clear.
If you thought Sheldon Keefe was furious when he shouted at the refs on Saturday during an ugly loss to Winnipeg, you should have seen Toronto’s coach smouldering behind the visitors’ bench at Canadian Tire Centre 24 hours later. He may have been turning purple beneath his COVID-19 mask.
All teams play a stinker every now and then, but this one left an odour. It didn’t come against a top-tier team battling for a playoff position in the North Division such as the Jets. It occurred against the Senators, who are far enough in arrears they can’t see the front.
Ottawa ambushed the do-little-rights from out of town in a 4-3 victory. The Maple Leafs have now lost in five of their past six outings, and have not won in regulation since March 3. At one point, they were running away from their six rivals in the All-Canadian division. They now cling to a four-point lead over Winnipeg and Edmonton, and the Jets play three times before Toronto’s next game on Friday when the Calgary Flames visit Scotiabank Arena.
After a terrific start, the Maple Leafs could be looking up in the standings or tied for first by then. Three of Ottawa’s 10 wins in 31 games have come over Toronto.
The Senators had lost five of their past six before starting goalie Matt Murray suffered an upper-body injury during Sunday’s warmups. For them, perhaps it was not such a bad thing.
Drake Batherson #19 of the Ottawa Senators skates to the bench after scoring a second period goal against the Toronto Maple Leafs at Canadian Tire Centre on March 14, 2021 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.Matt Zambonin/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images
Murray, who won two Stanley Cups in Pittsburgh, is 7-12 with a 3.84 goals-against average and .880 save percentage wearing red, black, gold and white. He allowed seven goals in a loss to Edmonton on Wednesday and had given up six in one of three earlier losses in 2021 to the Maple Leafs.
Rookie Joey Daccord, who had not won in four previous starts, filled in and earned the first triumph of his NHL career. Two nights after Daccord got blitzed for six goals in a loss to the Oilers, he stopped 33 of 36 shots against the reeling Maple Leafs.
Michael Hutchinson, who has done well in relief of Frederik Andersen, got the start in Toronto’s net. He lasted all of 6 minutes 13 seconds before he was yanked after allowing goals on the second and third shots he saw.
Brady Tkachuck walked in and scored his team-high 11th goal with 13:54 left in the first period. Ryan Dzingel then beat Hutchinson with a wrist shot seven seconds later, and the backup was done for the night.
Andersen, who has lost three of his past four starts, came in and temporarily stemmed Ottawa’s offence. Senators forward Austin Watson and Maple Leafs defenceman Zach Bogosian exchanged punches in the period, and their brawl ended with Bogosian laying on the bottom on the ice.
Zach Hyman scored the first of his two goals to cut the deficit in half when he jammed a shot past Daccord 8:22 before the first intermission. It was Hyman’s fifth goal in the past nine games and his ninth overall. Auston Matthews and Morgan Rielly were each credited with assists.
Joey Daccord #34 of the Ottawa Senators makes a save as Zach Hyman #11 of the Toronto Maple Leafs looks for a rebound at Canadian Tire Centre on March 14, 2021 in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada.Matt Zambonin/Freestyle Photo/Getty Images
Andersen settled in and stopped all 10 shots he faced in the period and the teams headed to their dressing rooms with Ottawa ahead 2-1.
Then things went from bad to worse for the Maple Leafs. Drake Batherson netted a gorgeous cross-crease back-handed pass from German rookie Tim Stutzle to put the Senators up 3-1 five minutes into the period. Batherson added another on a rebound 53 seconds later to increase the lead to three. It was Batherson’s 10th and 11th goals of the season.
Toronto looked like it had cut the lead to 4-2 in the third when Ilya Mikheyev beat Daccord halfway through, but the goal was negated by an interference call because Pierre Engvall was in the opposing goaltender’s crease.
With the Maple Leafs storming the net Andersen pulled, Hyman then scored his second goal with 5:20 left and Toronto was back in business. William Nylander and John Tavares set it up. Toronto then got to within 4-3 when Nylander scored with just 2:12 on the clock. Mitch Marner and Reilly were awarded the assists.
The Maple Leafs pressed hard with Andersen back on the bench but were unable to score the equalizer. The Senators, being the Senators, missed three shots at an open net, any one of which would have iced the game, but still held on for the win.
Andersen, who entered the game with the worst save percentage of his career at .899, was credited with 26 saves.
Toronto has now lost two in a row to Vancouver, two of three to Winnipeg and another to the last-place team in its division. It has four days off before the Flames, who have won their past two and are also creeping closer, come to town.
“We are not worried where we are at right now,” Hyman said afterward. “We know how good we can be. It’s just about regrouping this week and moving forward.”
In this one, the outcome was worse than the score. The Maple Leafs were outhit, took more penalties, and blocked fewer shot than the Senators. It all added up to a defeat by a team they are better than.
After a day off on Monday, Keefe will bring the players back in for practise and have a few things for them to work on.
“Oh yes, we will,” he said.