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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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In a fight for their playoff lives, the Toronto Maple Leafs turned in one of their worst performances in weeks against the Florida Panthers on Tuesday night, falling 7-2. While the loss was deflating in itself, the out of town scoreboard also didn’t go the Maple Leafs’ way, with the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Islanders both winning and leapfrogging Toronto in the standings. The Maple Leafs are now one point back of those two teams for the East’s second wild card spot, with a game in hand on each.

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Takeaways

 

No way out: The Maple Leafs got down early - 18 seconds in early - in a game they would never come to lead, or even tie. With two days off since playing the Carolina Hurricanes on Saturday, Toronto had plenty of downtime in the South Florida sun, practicing on Monday but foregoing morning skate Tuesday in favour of more rest and vitamin D (of which Mike Babcock is a big proponent). Riding a three-game win streak, Toronto was facing a Florida team not only in the midst of a six-game slide, but that had been struggling to score (only 19 goals in their last nine games) and that was without Aaron Ekblad (concussion). But the Maple Leafs didn’t look well-rested out of the gate - they looked outmatched. While Tuesday was the third straight game in which Toronto had given up the opening score, they'd won the previous two matchups (the team is now 7-17-6 when surrendering the first goal). By the end of the first frame, Toronto trailed 3-1; the closest they came to closing the gap was at 2-1, midway through that period. Tuesday was the first time the Maple Leafs have surrendered seven goals since Nov. 8 against the Kings (7-0). 

Defensive downturn: Toronto’s defence has been spotty all season, but they were woefully ineffectual in Sunrise. Nikita Zaitsev finished with a season-low plus-minus of minus-four and was taken off his usual top pairing spot tackling the toughest matchup beside Morgan Rielly (who finished minus-3). The three blue-line pairings rotated all night, as Babcock searched in vain for a tandem he liked. But the Maple Leafs repeatedly got caught puck watching and failed to make the simple plays, costing them two points. On Keith Yandle’s third-period goal, he went unchallenged with ample time and space down low in Toronto’s zone. Jonathan Marchessault’s second tally was set up when Rielly had a chance to clear the zone but couldn’t get the puck out. Only Roman Polak and Jake Gardiner finished with a plus-minus of zero; the rest of the backend was a minus. 

Crease crisis: While their defence didn’t give him much in the way of help, Frederik Andersen and Curtis McElhinney had rough nights of their own. Andersen started the game, but was pulled after allowing three goals on eight shots in the first period. He hadn’t been yanked since January 31 in Dallas, the first game back from the All-Star break, where he also gave up three goals on eight shots to get the hook. Andersen had posted save percentages above .900 in eight of his last 10 games going into Tuesday night, but whether it was a breakaway goal by Colton Sceviour or a seeing-eye point blast through traffic by Marchessault, Andersen wasn’t at his best. In relief, McElhinney did what he could to salvage the game, but too many breakdowns and failure to get any goal support ultimately doomed hopes of a comeback. On the other side, former Maple Leaf James Reimer turned in one of his best performances of the season after Toronto shellacked him for six goals in November. Reimer was on an 0-6-1 run with a 3.40 goals against average, but stopped 28 of 30 shots Tuesday for a .933 save percentage.

Special teams struggle: The Maple Leafs have one of the best power plays and road penalty kills in the NHL, but against the Panthers both units struggled at times. While on the power play in the first period, Zaitsev fell down twice trying to skate back and defend against Sceviour, who took advantage of the breakaway chance to score shorthanded on Andersen. It was Toronto’s first shorthanded goal against since Jan. 19. Later, after scoring his fifth goal of the season, Nikita Soshnikov took a penalty late in the second period and Jussi Jokinen finished off a brilliant play with a goal McElhinney had no hope of stopping, putting Toronto down 6-2 with 26.2 seconds left in the frame. The Maple Leafs generated only one power-play score of their own on their attempts, courtesy of Komarov from Willam Nylander. Toronto has now given up a power-play goal in each of its last three games.

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Next game: Toronto caps off its southern swing in a meeting with the Lightning on Thursday.