Toronto Maple Leafs forward Easton Cowan placed the blame on himself as Toronto’s four-game win streak came to an end with a 5-2 loss to the Calgary Flames on Monday.
Cowan turned the puck over along the boards in his own end ahead of Calgary’s second goal to go up 2-0 in the first period and was in the penalty box after taking an additional roughing on Martin Pospisil as the Flames took a 3-0 lead in early in the second.
“Dumb penalty by me. Those two goals are on me. I cost us the game, and I gotta be better,” Cowan said after the loss. “Selfish of me to take that dumb penalty. Can’t have that. Gotta be better and control my emotions better.”
Cowan found some redemption with a second-period goal and the Maple Leafs pushed back to trail 3-2 in the third period, but struggled with discipline throughout the loss Monday. The team took seven minor penalties and a fighting major, with Zack MacEwen dropping the gloves with Jacob Middleton in the first period.
Star forward Auston Matthews took back-to-back penalties in the third period, first on a delay of game for playing the puck with his hand off a face-off and then for high-sticking.
Matthews rejected the idea at the defeat rested on Cown’s shoulders.
“We win as a team and lose as a team. It’s not on one individual guy,” Matthews said. “I took two penalties with less than 10 minutes to go when we’re trying to tie up the game.
“There’s a number of factors that go into losses and wins. We stick together as a team. It’s all 20 guys that were on the ice, and we’ve got to be better in different areas. But it’s definitely not on one guy.”
Toronto had appeared to find their stride entering the loss in Calgary, having just defeated the red-hot Edmonton Oilers 7-2 on Saturday.
“Turned the puck over way too much,” head coach Jim Hiller said of the defeat. “I thought, over the last four games, we’d taken that out of our game. It was there in spades tonight and you can’t win in the league if you do that, and we saw that.”
“They played a pretty good, disciplined game and we put ourselves in a deficit,” goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky added. “Three goals, it’s tough to recover, but I thought that guys did a great job. We didn’t open up in the third, we didn’t cheat the game. That’s the big sign.”
Halfway through their western road swing, the Maple Leafs will visit the Seattle Kraken on Wednesday before taking on the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday.
Toronto is 7-5-2 this season and are tied with the New York Rangers with a league-high 14 games played.