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TSN Toronto Maple Leafs Reporter

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OTTAWA – The Maple Leafs’ swagger has gone missing. On Saturday night, the mission to retrieve it begins in earnest.

But that mission won't be easy. To halt their four-game losing streak, the Leafs will have to get through the Ottawa Senators, who have won nine of the last 10 meetings between the teams.

That’s where Toronto’s recently absent swagger comes in – already in their own heads after a string of blown-lead losses and overtime failures, the Leafs can’t afford to let Ottawa’s dominance irk them too.

“I think you’ve seen [the swagger] before,” said Connor Brown. “It’s about when you have the lead, you don’t want to spend the whole time defending in your end…it’s about going to get [the other team] when we have the lead. At the end of the day, it’s all about that swagger, and if we find a way to close out a close one I’m sure we’ll get that swagger right back.”

It better, because when it's lacking in the final five minutes of games lately, the Leafs have looked like a shell of the poised, mature group that was winning tight-checking, one-goal games early in the season – the same type of contests that are now giving them fits. By mid-November, the Leafs were 6-1 in games decided by a single goal; since then, they’ve amassed seven wins and seven losses in the same situation.

Four of those defeats happened in the last week, and two included the Leafs letting a two-goal lead evaporate to nothing. It may not have made for an ugly slide down the standings – Toronto still has an 11-point cushion on the Atlantic Division’s third seed – but it has left the team reeling just a little.

“We feel really close [to being ourselves again],” said Brown. “The highs and lows of the season, giving up some leads and not being able to finish out games, makes it feel like we’re further than we actually are. A lot of times in hockey games we’ve been playing good hockey.”

“We’re going through something right now where we haven’t played hard enough,” added Mike Babcock. “We haven’t been detailed enough. We’ve had chances to win every one of these games. Sometimes the lessons in the league are what help you get better and this is one of those opportunities. So let’s go out there and play right.”

Certainly the Leafs’ ability to earn a lead at all in games is a positive sign, but there are no asterisks in hockey; the team's success is still ultimately measured by wins and losses. It was earning too few of the former lately thanks to sloppy – even lazy – play from his teammates that encouraged Frederik Andersen to call out the Leafs’ effort after Thursday’s 3-2 overtime loss in Philadelphia.

The unexpected public commentary started a much-needed dialogue for the Leafs about accountability, and how they’re finally starting to enforce it with each other. Babcock said that’s the sign of a good team emerging, because when there are no expectations to live up to internally, there’s no reason to hold anyone accountable. And while the Leafs may look fragile on the outside, Andersen is sure they can find their way back to the swagger that’s helped define the best parts of their season so far.

“Swagger means we have the puck a lot, we create a lot of scoring chances, we don’t turn the puck over too much and we get the puck to the net a lot,” said Andersen. “That obviously creates a lot of scoring chances and those often result in goals. We’ve talked about things internally, but I think I’ll keep [the specifics] there. At the end of the day we want to use that as a positive and go from here.”

Andersen has been the Leafs’ best player since Nov. 1, with the .931 save percentage to prove it. So his teammates naturally defended him speaking out after another of his terrific 30-plus save performances was laid to waste against the Flyers by careless errors. From there, the Leafs need to get back to trusting each other and themselves again.

When they do, the swagger – and even a win or two – will follow.

“We’re all in the same boat – coaches, trainers, sports science, players,” said Babcock. “We win together, we lose together. When we don’t get it done, it’s on all of us. As you create a real good team over time, the players take over that accountability thing and sometimes it’s not kind to one another, but it’s real. Living in the real world is important in our league.”

Morning skate notes
-          Morgan Rielly was among the participants at the Leafs’ optional morning skate. He was injured in the second period of Thursday’s game and did return to finish out the game, but in limited capacity. Rielly will be a game-time decision against the Senators.

-          Babcock didn’t have an update on when Nikita Zaitsev will return from a lower-body injury that’s sidelined him since Dec. 15, but he did say the blue liner is doing everything he can to hurry back: “I just know that Zaits is one of those guys who wants to be in every single day. He’s doing more than any other person would ever do to get back. He’s skating good, and I keep saying to the trainers the science experiment’s got to be over, but that’s the great thing, I don’t get to decide those things and I think that’s important too. Between him and the medical science group, they’ll figure that out.”