Buffalo Sabres right wing Tage Thompson celebrates his goal with teammates during the second period against the Toronto Maple Leafs at KeyBank Center in Buffalo, N.Y. on Dec. 21.Timothy T. Ludwig/Reuters
A rare day of rest and reflection did little to soften the memory of the nightmare outing that unfolded Thursday evening in Buffalo.
Despite scoring his league-leading 26th goal of the season, Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews pulled no punches immediately after Toronto’s 9-3 loss to the Sabres, calling it “an embarrassment” in the postgame news conference, equating it to the worst game the team has played in his eight seasons in Toronto.
William Nylander echoed those comments Friday afternoon in Columbus, where Toronto will try to snap a two-game losing streak Saturday night against the Blue Jackets before heading off for a Christmas break.
“That was maybe one of the worst games that we’ve played, I think, giving up so many chances and stuff and leaving [our goalies] to dry,” said the team’s leading scorer, who extended his point streak to 10 games with an assist in the loss.
With the Leafs giving up nine goals in a game for the first time in almost a decade (Nov. 18, 2014, vs. Nashville was the last instance), the team’s goaltending is again under the microscope.
Starter Ilya Samsonov was pulled after conceding five goals on 19 shots, and has now given up 15 goals in his past three starts.
Backup Martin Jones fared little better in relief, giving up a short-handed goal to Kyle Okposo on his first shot after replacing Samsonov just before the midway point of the second period, and picking the puck out of the net three more times before the night was done. The former all-star has now allowed eight goals in his two appearances this week, coming on the heels of his first shutout as a Maple Leaf last Saturday against Pittsburgh.
The pair have been unwittingly thrust into the spotlight since nominal starter Joseph Woll went down with an ankle injury on Dec. 7 in Ottawa. And with the team in the midst of a stretch of nine games in 17 days, there has been little respite on offer.
Jones seemed unperturbed in the eye of the maelstrom Friday, though, exuding the manner of someone who has been there and bought the T-shirt on multiple occasions.
“Honestly same as any other game. You look back, you assess,” he said. “You try and learn from it and then you start directing your attention to [Saturday’s] game.”
In the eyes of head coach Sheldon Keefe, reversing the recent trend of sub-optimal results starts not just with the goaltender, but with every skater in front of him.
“There’s a highway to our net,” Keefe said. “We’ve got to make it way harder for teams to get to our net and at times this season we’ve done that really well.
“I thought we went through about a 10-game stretch, probably somewhere around games 10 to 20 in that area, where I thought we were defending really well and really slowing things up. I found here of late that we’ve regressed back in that area.”
With Columbus on tap for the second time this season, it is a chance for Toronto to avenge the first meeting on Dec. 14, when the Leafs, down by five goals, pulled off a furious third-period rally to send the game to overtime, before ultimately losing on a Kent Johnson goal.
But it’s results such as that – in which the team relies on its scoring stars to come within a whisker of engineering a Houdini-like escape – that Keefe says have given his players a false sense of security at times.
“We’ve been finding ways to get results and we’ve been scoring and some of that stuff hasn’t hurt us necessarily,” he said. “But it’s been lingering and [Thursday] night was a combination of us not being good and then playing against a good team.”
Starting with the home overtime loss to the Jackets, the Leafs have now taken just three of the past eight points on offer and remain second in the Atlantic Division, behind Boston.
Looking to shake the team from its torpor, Keefe tinkered with his lines at practice on Friday, with Mitch Marner taking the place of Nylander alongside Matthews and Matthew Knies on the top line.
While Knies understands that there is a team-wide need to “tighten up” across all facets of the game, he’s also relishing the opportunity to get out there with two of the team’s most skilled skaters.
The rookie Leafs winger has just seven goals and six assists this season through 28 games – good for eighth on the team in scoring – though he’s gone pointless in five of his past six games. So naturally the Phoenix native is hoping some of the magic generated between Matthews and Marner will find its way on to his stick blade Saturday night.
“They have an incredible chemistry together,” Knies said of his more experienced linemates. “I just have to … find a way to be in good areas for them and good spots, but they’re two elusive players that love to play with the puck.
“So my job ... is to play simple and get them the puck and just get to areas where I can find myself in an open spot.”