The Maple Leafs lost 1-0 to the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena. Sunday is a day off for the team.
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Jim Hiller insists this isn’t as bad as it looks.
“You write your stories, but I’m here to tell you we deserved better than that over that six-game homestand,” the Leafs head coach said.
Toronto failed to gain a point during a run of six straight games at Scotiabank Arena. The Leafs were outscored 23-9 during regulation losses to the Utah Mammoth, Montreal Canadiens, New Jersey Devils, Colorado Avalanche, Minnesota Wild and Edmonton Oilers. That’s as tough a two-week gauntlet as you can get in the NHL right now, but to come away with nothing from it, well, it’s hard to spin that positively.
“It’s been challenging,” admitted centre John Tavares. “I think, first and foremost, you know, we feel for our fans and the difficulty we’ve had here at home and not taking advantage of home ice [with it being] a special place to play here in Toronto.”
“The guys played their tail off,” Hiller said in the wake of Saturday’s 1-0 setback. “They did. I don’t think anybody’s going to question that. I’d like to see them get rewarded for that. I really would. It is what it is.”
The Leafs have fallen to last place in the Atlantic Division standings. Toronto woke up on Sunday morning sitting eight points outside of a playoff spot despite playing 14 of 22 games at home, where they are now 4-9-1.
“It sucks,” said goalie Anthony Stolarz. “It’s not fun and you want to put on a show for the fans and get everyone excited. We dug ourselves a little bit of a hole here and no one to blame but ourselves.”
The Leafs emptied the tank on Saturday night in a battle against Connor McDavid and the Oilers, allowing just one goal against the NHL’s best road team. Edmonton is averaging 3.86 goals per game, which is third most in the NHL.
“We defended well against an obviously very good offensive team,” said defenceman Chris Tanev. “I think it’s the first time we’ve given up less than four goals in two weeks. You could correct me if I’m wrong but, I mean, that part of our game was really good.”
It was the first time the Leafs allowed fewer than four goals since the first game of the homestand, which was a 3-2 loss to the Mammoth.
“It’s definitely frustrating, but I think this is probably one of our better games on this homestand,” said Stolarz, who stopped 22 of 23 shots. “I think this was probably our most consistent 60-minute effort.”
But you can’t win if you don’t score and the Leafs have now been shutout in two of the last four games. They scored more than two goals just once on the homestand. Toronto generated just 10 power-play chances in the six games and scored just once on the man advantage.
“That’s a big part of it,” Hiller said. “I don’t know how many opportunities we’ve had over the last four or five games on the power play. Not that many. That was a big part of our offence to start the season.”
Toronto’s top unit failed to land a shot on net during the team’s one power-play chance on Saturday.
“Sometimes even if you don’t score, you feel good,” Hiller noted. “The crowd gets into the game. The guys feel the puck and I think it just helps your overall offensive game some nights. When you’re not getting any and you’re not generating a lot in your minimal opportunities, it just feels like it gets to be a slog.”
It’s been a slog for the Leafs since Oct. 26 in Calgary when winger Kirill Marchenko got hurt and Toronto fell 3-2 to the Flames. That was a start of a stretch that has seen them lose eight of nine games with all the defeats coming in regulation.
Help does not appear to be on the way. Marchenko remains listed as week-to-week. Defenceman Morgan Rielly is listed as day-to-day, but has not been spotted on the ice since sustaining a lower-body injury on Nov. 9.
So, how do the Leafs avoid being consumed by frustration?
“It’s hard,” Hiller acknowledged. “Listen, it’s hard. That’s the bottom line. We’re all professionals. They’re the athletes. We’re coaches and management. We’re all professionals. This is a hard thing to go through. But what are your options? To me, your option is to come out and play your ass off and hopefully things turn better than they did for us [Saturday]. You’ve got to go do it again the next game. That’s just it.”
“Each person needs just to give a little more,” said Tanev. “Win that extra battle and get in front of the goalie that one extra time or get the puck out at the blue line that one extra time or take a hit to make a play so we can sort of start rolling and then build off of that.”
The schedule finally gets easier next week. The Leafs will head to Chicago to play the Blackhawks (31st in overall league standings) on Tuesday before returning home to host the Los Angeles Kings (30th) on Thursday and Columbus Blue Jackets (29th) on Saturday. The Leafs (26th) are ahead of all three of those teams and already beat the Jackets earlier this season.
“I guarantee we’re going to keep working to find our way through it,” Tavares vowed. “We’ll get through it and be better for it.”
“It’s gut check time,” Stolarz said. “We have to look at look at ourselves in the mirror. But I think if we play like [Saturday] most nights and we get that consistent effort up and down the lineup, I think we’re going to come out on top.”
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The Leafs appeared to tie Saturday’s game early in the third period when Tavares deflected a point shot by William Nylander past Devon Levi. The officials reviewed the play and determined Tavares contacted the puck when his stick was above the crossbar.
“Felt pretty good about it when it went in and during the process,” said Tavares, who remains without a point in five games since returning from a lower-body injury. “So, I don’t know what the explanation is or obviously exactly what the league saw.”
The review lasted four and a half minutes and quieted the crowd.
“That hurt,” Hiller said. “That one hurt. I saw a goal called on the ice. I stared at my monitor for a minute. I couldn’t see anything that said it wasn’t. They stared at the monitor for four and a half or five minutes and obviously they found something that I didn’t see looking down there.”
The Leafs struggled to generate many chances the rest of the way as Levi stopped all 19 shots faced to record his first career shutout.
“I saw the tip and it went over my head so I was like, ‘There’s no way a puck should be going over my head like that,’” Levi said. “I knew it was a high stick. I was surprised how long they took to review it. It must’ve been close, but I had a pretty good feeling.”
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Stolarz was starting consecutive games for the first time this season.
“It’s exciting to get your name called and be out there back-to-back,” the 32-year-old said. “I’m an easygoing guy, so just try to enjoy the moment ... I felt good about my game. You got to give props to Levi at the other end. He made some big saves. You see him doing that and you want to just up your level and try to match him.”
Stolarz dropped a third straight decision, but boosted his save percentage to .906 and may have proven to the coaching staff that he can handle a heavier workload moving forward.
“He was really good,” Hiller said. “That just enters the conversation and we continue to talk about it. But he was really good. For sure, we’re happy.”
Stolarz is responsible for five of Toronto’s eight wins this season.
Sergei Bobrovsky has not played since Tuesday when he allowed five goals on 27 shots against the Avalanche. Bobrovsky, who signed a three-year, $21-million deal in the summer, is 3-8-2 with an .881 save percentage.
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After sitting out two of the three previous games for what the team called “planned maintenance,” Tanev logged more than 20 minutes against the Oilers.
“I’m not sure if you saw them all, but I know there were four that I saw — and probably more — where we made a mistake and he was there to clean it up,” Hiller praised. “That’s been part of our problem over the stretch: We’ve made a mistake, we’ve made another mistake, maybe even sometimes another one, and it ends up in the back of your net.”
Tanev blocked three shots, landed two hits and helped the Leafs kill off Edmonton’s one power-play chance.
TSN Hockey Insider Pierre LeBrun reports that the Leafs plan to rest Tanev again on Nov. 28 when they play the second game of a back-to-back set in Pittsburgh. Tanev, who will turn 37 next month, has made it clear he disagrees with the load management plan even though he has missed 80 games due to injury since the start of last season.
“It is what it is,” he said with a sigh on Saturday night. “I mean, I’ve said what I’ve said and whenever I’m playing I’m gonna work my ass off to help this team win, like I’ve done for the last 17 years. And when I’m not playing, I’m gonna work my butt off to make sure that I’m doing everything I can to stay healthy. Hopefully I can stay healthy for a period of time and then we can sort of reevaluate what’s happening.”
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Lines to start Saturday’s game:
Cowan - Matthews - Roslovic
Tverberg - Tavares - Nylander
McKenna - Paul - Joshua
Duhaime - Blueger - MacEwen
McCabe - Raddysh
Ekman-Larsson - Tanev
Mermis - Stecher
Stolarz starts
Bobrovsky