Toronto Maple Leafs forward Mitch Marner speaks with Auston Matthews in the first period against the Carolina Hurricanes at Scotiabank Arena on Dec 30.Dan Hamilton/Reuters
They are 34 games into the regular season and the Maple Leafs are pretty much a mess.
They have lost five of their past six games and six of the past eight and are holding on to third place in the NHL’s Atlantic Division mainly because of the ineptitude of teams behind them.
It is easy to look at them and see a glass half-full but that would be a free pass that they don’t deserve. On Sunday, they waived their erratic goalie Ilya Samsonov. He began the 2023-24 campaign as a starter, was demoted to second and then third string, and currently ranks next to last in the NHL among all netminders who have played at least 10 games.
With the recent slide, Toronto has now won half of its games and wake up on Jan. 1 nine points behind the Boston Bruins in the division standing and five behind the Florida Panthers.
To this point the team has underperformed. It certainly did not deserve a toast when Auld Lang Syne was sung at midnight to mark the beginning of 2024.
The latest loss, again self-inflicted, came at the hands of the Hurricanes on Saturday. To prove a point – I’m not sure what, exactly – Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe scratched one of his most reliable penalty killers for a costly blunder in the preceding game.
It was the first outing David Kampf has missed in five years, and Carolina went on to score twice on the power play in the 3-2 victory at Scotiabank Arena.
“I guess you would call it a message to the team,” Keefe said beforehand.
The message, if any, smelled of desperation. Of, ‘I don’t know what is wrong with these guys but I have to do something.’
The Maple Leafs lost at Columbus in overtime the night before. It was their second 6-5 defeat by one of the worst teams in the league in two weeks.
Samsonov, who seems to have caught a nasty case of Jack Campbell-itis, allowed all 12 goals on 56 shots as his save percentage fell to .862. He had given up 21 goals in his past four appearances and likely is headed to the AHL if a team does not claim him on Monday.
Joseph Woll, who had wrestled the starting job away from Samsonov, remains out long term with an ankle sprain so the team has plugged in third-stringer Martin Jones, who has done okay.
While a reality, to assign blame to injuries is also an excuse. Everyone gets them.
The Maple Leafs are tied for the third-fewest wins in regulation time among the 16 teams in the Eastern Conference.
“Every point matters,” the captain, John Tavares, said after Saturday’s loss. “In general, it just was not a great week for us. It is important to regroup here and get back to work. We have to bounce back.”
The team sets out for three games in California, the first of which will be played in Los Angeles against the Kings on Tuesday. LA is very good and will present a difficult challenge.
On Wednesday Toronto will play the second of a back-to-back in Anaheim against the struggling Ducks before concluding its West Coast trip on Saturday against San Jose. The Sharks are easily the NHL’s worst team; to win any fewer than two of these three on the road would be yet another disappointment.
We are 34 games in and the Maple Leafs remain an enigma. A superstar in Auston Matthews. A budding one in William Nylander. A fine forward in Mitch Marner. Tavares still carries his load.
After that?
Their goaltending is subpar. Other than Morgan Rielly their defensive unit cannot be counted on to put up many points. Rielly has four goals – the same as everyone else on the blueline combined.
There are enough issues here that to suddenly bench a mostly dependable defensive player is to grasp at the wrong straw. Really no lesson to be learned at all.
“You feel for David,” Tavares said late Saturday after Kampf’s streak of 323 consecutive games had come to a halt. “He wants to go out there and make a difference and play at a high level.
“We have Dave’s back and know he is going to play important hockey for us.”