Jan 20, 2017
Babcock fuming over Leafs’ effort vs. Rangers
Maple Leafs head coach Mike Babcock calls his team's 5-2 loss to the Rangers on Thursday the ‘least competitive night we’ve had this year’.
TORONTO – The day after his Toronto Maple Leafs were run over by the New York Rangers 5-2 at home, coach Mike Babcock didn’t hide the disdain for his team’s effort.
“We were terrible last night,” he said after practice at MasterCard Centre on Friday. “I haven’t been here that long, but I don’t know how often we came to the rink where we thought we should win. You’re not disappointed that often. We didn’t compete hard last night and we weren’t prepared. That’s my job. I was disappointed when we left the rink.”
Morgan Rielly’s absence looms large over the Maple Leafs three days after he went down with a lower-body injury. Toronto’s blueline was a disorganized mess without him against the Rangers, with the pairings shuffled after New York put 19 shots on goal in the first period.
The 41 total shots against were the most the Maple Leafs have allowed since Dec. 13. If not for Frederik Andersen’s 37-save performance, which kept Toronto in striking distance until the final minutes, the result would have been worse.
“Maybe my expectations are way different for the group, but I thought that was the least competitive night we’ve had this year,” Babcock said. “Players cleared out of the room pretty quick last night too. They know. They’re big boys. They know what’s going on.”
The fact Babcock pinpointed Thursday’s loss, not being dismantled 7-0 by the Los Angeles Kings or 7-3 by the Tampa Bay Lightning earlier in the season, as the Maple Leafs’ most disappointing speaks volumes about how much the team has evolved since the fall.
The group’s confidence ballooned on their 9-1-1 run heading into Thursday’s game, but it has to be balanced with the realities of an unforgiving league.
“There’s that fine line to it. Those swings can be a little bit higher and a little bit lower with a young team that doesn’t have that experience,” said James van Riemsdyk, who’s currently on the Maple Leafs’ longest point streak of the season at nine games. “When you win a few games when you’re a little younger it’s easy to get ahead of yourself and start thinking about things that are way too far down the line.”
Rielly skated by himself on Friday and told Babcock he was hoping to feel better than he did, but was “fine.” He will miss Saturday’s game against the Ottawa Senators.
One defenceman Toronto will likely get back in the lineup on Saturday is Martin Marincin. After a difficult start to the season and being a healthy scratch in eight games, Marincin suffered a lower-body injury in early December.
Just a week before going down, Marincin had his best game of the season in Vancouver, playing 20:28 with one assist and excellent possession numbers (67.6 Corsi-for percentage). Any momentum was halted when he slammed back-first into the boards in Boston on Dec. 10, forcing him to miss six weeks.
Marincin has been a full participant in practice since Toronto returned from its bye week on Jan. 12. He skated with Nikita Zaitsev on Friday, while Jake Gardiner and Connor Carrick were reunited as the top pair. Babcock will make the final decisions on his lineup against the Senators on Saturday morning.
“I’m feeling great. I’m ready to play,” Marincin said. “The last couple practices I had contact, and that was pretty hard. It was hard work back there [with the trainers], but that’s good because now I’m feeling as good as before.”
Good news for Marincin means Frank Corrado will likely go back to the press box after returning to the NHL stage Thursday night for the first time since Nov. 12. Corrado took two penalties in less than four minutes in the second period and saw almost no action in the third until the final 2:57, with the game out of reach.
He was Babcock’s seventh defenceman in practice on Friday.