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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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TORONTO – Coming off their worst loss of the season to the Los Angeles Kings on Tuesday, the Toronto Maple Leafs had a pair of long, hard practice days to think about what went wrong and how to be better.

Ahead of Friday night’s contest against the Philadelphia Flyers, the first of back-to-back games with a trip to Pittsburgh on Saturday, the Maple Leafs were itching to get back to work.

“Whether you’re an older guy on this team or a younger guy on this team, you don’t want to lose games like we did Tuesday night,” Morgan Rielly said. “We’re all motivated. …We’re a unit here. There are no individuals. It’s just a matter of our team coming in tonight and putting forth a good, strong effort.”

Head coach Mike Babcock hasn’t shuffled his lines after they all failed to get on the score sheet Tuesday, but at Friday’s morning skate, the defence pairings had been changed. Rielly had been playing with Nikita Zaitsev on the top pair, but Roman Polak joined Rielly instead, while Zaitsev and Martin Marincin took reps together.

Philadelphia comes to town third in the league in goals-for per game (3.36) while the Maple Leafs are last in the NHL in goals-against per game (3.62).

“[The Flyers] have two lines that score,” Babcock said. “We’ve got two groups we have to handle and we haven’t been handling the second group as good. We’re trying to figure out how to do that. I don’t know if [defence changes are] happening tonight. Just watch the pregame skate.”

This would hardly be the first time the Maple Leafs’ blueline has seen changes this season. Toronto has gone with seven defenders so far and they’ve all seen time with each other at some point through 13 games.

“We’re a close group. I think when you change the pairings like this there’s no adjustment,” Rielly said. “I love playing with Roman. He’s strong, he’s hard-nosed and he does a lot of things very well.”

One of the biggest challenges the Maple Leafs will face against the Flyers is finding ways to spend less time in their own zone and more time in what Babcock calls “the fun zone.”

“If you’re the coach of a team that’s giving up the most goals in the league, you have to look right there [points at himself],” Babcock said. “Why are we going from where we were with less talent to where we are with more talent? You know when it’s going in your net all the time it’s not going in their net. So you’re playing in the wrong zone. That [defensive zone] is the work zone, the speed zone is the neutral zone and the fun zone is the one you want to play in. You better learn how to play without [the puck] so you can spend more time in the fun zone.”

Morning skate notes

- Toronto placed forward Seth Griffith on waivers. The Maple Leafs claimed Griffith from Boston on Oct. 10. He has a history with assistant GM Mark Hunter and played in three games (with zero points). With Josh Leivo set to return from his conditioning stint in the AHL, a roster spot needed to be made available.

- Travis Konecny has been one the NHL’s top rookies so far this season for the Flyers, and he easily could have been a Maple Leaf. Toronto owned the 24th pick in the 2015 NHL draft and traded it to the Flyers for picks No. 29 and No. 61. They then flipped the 29th pick for two other choices. Those players became defenceman Travis Dermott (34th), and forwards Jeremy Bracco (61st) and Martin Dzierkals (68th). “I thought about [how Toronto could have drafted me] this morning when I was on the ice,” Konecny said. “It’s kind of funny, knowing how it ended up. I met with them twice. I came here and did a meeting with them in Toronto and met them at the combine. It was definitely on my mind.”

- Friday marks Rielly’s 250th career NHL game. He was anointed an alternate captain this season, the youngest of the team’s four at 22. “I think he’s a big part of the next wave. I think he’s a real good kid with tons of energy. I think he took real good strides last year,” Babcock said. “He was our best D last year, maybe not at the start but by the end for sure. So we need him to step up in that [leadership] area. We think he’s capable of doing it and we’re going to watch him as he grows.”