Toronto Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews (34) scored in his team’s 7-4 loss on Tuesday night, but his team is now eight points back of the final Eastern Conference playoff spot and on a five-game losing streak.John E. Sokolowski/Reuters
Facing what one player had called a “have to win” game on Tuesday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs kicked it up to a playoff gear. Not during the game, unfortunately. On the ice, the Leafs lay down and died again. Buffalo won 7-4.
How bad was it? Though the game was over with about tens left to go, nobody in the audience really bothered booing. The Leafs are past that sort of rough encouragement.
It was only after the game that the Leafs found their post-season form. There is a special look of bewilderment on the face of a Leaf – any Leaf – as he realizes that the same old plan has not produced fantastic new results. It’s not defeat, exactly. It’s more a dull acceptance.
Morgan Rielly had it as he debuted the Word of the Night: “desperate.”
“If we want to make a push, we have to be desperate,” Rielly said.
In fairness, he often does look desperate. Mostly whenever an opponent is coming toward him with a puck.
“We’ve gotta be more desperate as a group,” team captain Auston Matthews said.
Matthews been raked recently for not showing up to talk to the media after big losses. I feel for him. How is any person supposed to keep track of this many dispiriting defeats?
Matthew Knies side-stepped “desperate” and started instead with, “I thought their first few goals were lucky bounces.”
What a remarkable sentence to come out of the mouth of a professional – professional! – hockey player.
Buffalo Sabres goaltender Colten Ellis (92) and his teammates stumped Matthew Knies (23) and the Leafs on Tuesday, leaving them winless in what was a key five-game home stretch.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
Later, Knies would enumerate all the things the Leafs aren’t doing well, which sounded a lot like a list of every single thing that is involved in playing hockey, right down to – you guessed it – “desperation.”
None of them seemed worried, exactly. Why would they be? They play in Toronto. The team could go on strike in March, and next August they’d all be saying that the unscheduled break had really brought them together as a group. They learned so much during that boys’ month in Tulum. So many lessons about communication. This year for sure!
The only real discouragement was evinced by head coach Craig Berube.
Berube has had a rough couple of days. Between nearly being decapitated in the gym and having to coach this bunch of muppets, I have a hard time imagining which is worse.
Someone asked what he’d “learned” about his group during this five-loss homestand.
“What did I learn about ‘em,” Berube said, his usual monotone peaking dangerously. “That we have to keep the puck out of the net.”
Here it finally was. The freakout that would posthumously define this season of the damned. The great counterpoint to Mark Carney’s ‘Canada takes back the momentum’ oratory – the ‘Toronto gives up’ proclamation.
At the very least, we were about to be shown that someone who works for this outfit actually cares. Not in the ‘this sucks’ way that the Leafs usually do, but in the old-fashioned embarrassed way teams that actually care about doing a good job have.
Sadly, even the Leafs’ freakouts are timid things. Berube meandered around a bit about defence and then, for his big kicker, said, “I don’t need to learn anything about our team.”
Well, okay then, great. I suppose we’re finished then.
There is some to and fro yet to come. A lot can happen in 30 games, as I’m sure whoever talks next for the Leafs will remind us.
Standing eight points adrift of the last playoff spot, could they find a way to sneak in to the postseason? Maybe. Will it matter? Absolutely not.
It’s not the level of play. It’s not the effort, as such. It’s absolutely not the tactics. Cup winners don’t get that way because they put all their Xs in the right place on the grease board.
It’s that look.
Having seen it up close for running on a decade now, the look of playoff despair is unmistakable.
Turn off the oven. Pull the Leafs out, put them on a countertop and tent them with tin foil. This team is cooked.