TSN Toronto reporter Mark Masters checks in with news and notes from Maple Leafs practices and game-day skates.
 
- The Maple Leafs held a team meeting this morning in Minnesota ahead of tonight's game against the Wild. 
 
- The players refused to use their youth and inexperience as an excuse for last night's collapse in Winnipeg. “Is it inexperience? Maybe you could argue that, but at the same time we like to think we have a lot of mature young guys, maybe young guys that are older than they seem,” said 22-year-old defenceman Connor Carrick, who will be playing in his 57th NHL game tonight. “Even though our team is young, the message is — we've all heard it [before], you know — so it's just a matter of executing it. It's not like we were told anything today that we haven't known prior to our meeting.”
 
- Mike Babcock is relatively pleased with where his team sits early in the new season. “We've had an opportunity, I believe, to be 3-0. We've got four out of six points, which if you told me that before this started I would've said, ‘That's fine,’ but we could've had more and I'm a bit greedy and so are the guys.” Auston Matthews expects a spirited effort tonight even though Toronto is playing on consecutive nights. “From last night, definitely a bitter taste in our mouths so tonight everyone's really hungry to get going,” said Matthews, who has 15 shots on net to lead all NHL rookies. “We know we're a young team, but at the same time we've shown we can compete at this level. We can play against these teams. But there's always going to be a little learning curve and that's the process going along with this.”
 
- Wednesday night, Babcock was asked about the Hyman-Matthews-Nylander line and stated, “I thought it was really dangerous offensively and not very good defensively.” Matthews said his group will look to shore things up tonight specifically when it comes to their break-out plays, which were sloppy in Winnipeg and led to them getting hemmed in their own zone on a couple occasions.
 
- The Leafs held an optional skate with only a handful of players taking part. Among those on the ice was Frederik Andersen, who worked with goalie coach Steve Briere. “If you just look at stats it doesn't look pretty,” Andersen admitted when asked about last night's loss, “but I thought I played pretty well. Obviously, some small things I got to clean up and me and Stevey got to work today in practice so small fixes. I'm not too worried.” Babcock refused to blame Andersen for the loss in Winnipeg, but noted there is one specific issue to address. “It's pretty apparent where he's giving up goals, they'll just work at it,” Babcock noted. “In saying that, when you look at the start and they're outshooting us 6-0 and we could've been out of the game already, we weren't, suddenly we're up 4-0 so there's two parts ... We all remember the shots that go in, that's just life.”
 
- Minnesota native Jake Gardiner is excited to face Wild defenceman Mike Reilly. The pair are childhood friends and train together in the summer. “I was really hoping he was going to play tonight,” Gardiner admitted in reference to Reilly's rough start to the season, which led to a brief AHL demotion. “He won't be a friend out there tonight, but I'm happy for him.” Gardiner's brother and father actually made the trip to Winnipeg Wednesday night to watch the game before coming back to Saint Paul to be here this evening. “I don't know if I'd be doing that [drive] if I were them, but I appreciate the support,” Gardiner said with a chuckle.