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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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TORONTO – Another tight game, another close loss.

It has become a pattern for the Toronto Maple Leafs, who use their big-time speed and skill to blow past teams but fall just short when those elements are inhibited. On Tuesday night against the Carolina Hurricanes, the Maple Leafs got on the board first but had no answer for the Hurricanes’ smothering play the rest of the way, falling 2-1. It dropped Toronto to 8-8-3 on the season and 7-3 at home.

Tuesday was the second straight loss for the Maple Leafs, their first back-to-back defeats since late October. They lost by the same score and in much the same way in Montreal on Saturday night. When there’s no room for error, the Maple Leafs are still figuring out how to dig a little deeper.

“It was a contested game...there was a lot of battles. These are games we have to get better in and find ways to win,” head coach Mike Babcock said. “We’ve won more open games than we’ve won tight games, so we just have to find a way to compete. The reality is, in tight checking games, it’s not all skill, you have to put the puck into places and you have to win battles, and be determined. We’re learning that as we go.”

Only three of the Maple Leafs’ eight wins this season have been in one-goal games; the other five have been by three goals or more. Against a team that was riding a four-game win streak and boasting a crop of young talent in Carolina, the Maple Leafs were stifled early in the neutral zone and didn’t get a lot of consistent pressure – except when rookie Auston Matthews’ line was on the ice. While his oft-discussed goal drought stretched to 13 games, Matthews’ creativity shined as he dominated possession down low in the Hurricanes’ zone and, with William Nylander, led the team in shots on goal with four. He was also aggressive in the defensive zone, forcing turnovers and moving pucks out to the neutral zone.

But the end result of his work has become all-too-familiar for the 19-year-old.

“Kind of the same story, if you guys want to keep writing the same thing the last three weeks,” Matthews said after with a laugh. “We created a lot of opportunities once again. There were some chances, the one [I tried to hit] out of midair that just goes over the net, that’s just how it’s going right now. We were turning a lot of pucks over, we were battling, competing down low. I think there were parts of the game where we really controlled the play in their zone and we were able to cycle the puck and get rolling around. That stuff is all positive, but we want to come out with two points.”

The Hurricanes were excellent at collapsing on Maple Leafs throughout the night and taking away their quick sticks. Jake Gardiner was the only Toronto player that did find mesh on Tuesday, with a booming point shot through traffic in front of Cam Ward. It was the kind of play the defenceman would like to see the Maple Leafs use to their advantage in games where there’s not much real estate.

“I think on my goal, those are the kind of goals we want to score more often,” Gardiner said. “We could have done that more often, we could have used that on Saturday [in Montreal] and at the end of this game, with guys getting to the net and traffic. Especially late in games, that’s a lot of times how you’re going to score.”

Toronto has little time to dwell on their mini-skid – they play the Devils in New Jersey on Wednesday. It’s the fourth of 18 back-to-backs for the Maple Leafs, and they have yet to win the second game in any of them.

“I expect us to find a way to win tomorrow night. The bottom line is we have to,” Babcock said. “You’ve got to keep yourself in the hunt or you get yourself in trouble fast in this league. It’s important to bounce back. It’s time we win in a back-to-back, and go from there.”


Takeaways

  • Mitch Marner briefly left Tuesday's game in the first period after blocking a shot with his ankle and then taking a high hit from Jaccob Slavin. The rookie crawled off the ice and appeared in pain behind the bench but ultimately returned for two shifts of 17 and 51 seconds before he went to the Maple Leafs' dressing room. Marner only missed one shift before returning again. “I took a shot and took a hit after,” he said. “The league has their protocol just making sure everyone is safe so I had to come in for that reason. I think they watched the video again and realized the blocked shot is why I went down. Then I got to go back on.”
  • Gardiner also missed time after he appeared to block a shot off his hand in the defensive zone. He appeared to have trouble gripping his stick afterwards and was attended to on the bench. Gardiner insisted afterwards there was nothing to be concerned with.
  • Toronto only won two of 13 faceoffs in the first period, and chased the game from the outset. The Maple Leafs ended the night even with the Hurricanes in the dot, with Tyler Bozak rebounding from a mediocre performance in that area on Saturday to lead the team at 57 per cent.
  • Special teams were a killer for the Maple Leafs on Tuesday. The power play wasn’t clicking until the very end, when they managed to stay in the Hurricanes zone for the entire two minutes but still couldn’t score. In the second period, a turnover by Bozak on the power play led to a Viktor Stalberg breakaway goal. Seconds later, Gardiner couldn’t hold the line and gave up another breakaway chance to Elias Lindholm, who sent a shot high of Frederik Andersen. Ultimately the shorthanded goal made the difference on the score sheet, which puts into focus the importance of shoring up that unit, which sits at 20.4 per cent.
  • Roman Polak has his detractors but he brings an aggressive presence to every shift he’s on and the other team pays attention. Players on the ice with him keep their head on a swivel because he’s a physical threat at all times. Toronto has skill players on both sides of the puck, but balancing that with the force of skaters like Polak is important for a young team.
  • Despite his struggles getting on the score sheet lately, don’t expect Matthews to start changing up his routine any time soon. “You just stick with the same thing. I’m not crazy like that, not superstitious,” he said. “I have my own things that I do, that I’ve done since I was younger. I just stick with it. It’s worked for me up until this point so why change?”