sits in the league basement in key statistics<\/a> like puck possession.<\/p>\nIt was interesting in the lead-up to this one, watching the betting lines. I never wager, but the odds tend to give you an idea of where the smart money is going, and in this case, they kept slipping against Toronto, as more and more folks threw bets on a Columbus team that finished 15 spots and 19 points back of the Leafs in the standings six short months ago.<\/p>\n
It\u2019s not as if the Blue Jackets have been a powerhouse in the early going. They\u2019re a decent young team that may surprise, but it\u2019s more that basically everything that can go wrong is right now for the Leafs \u2014 and not having William Nylander (who the team revealed is day-to-day with a lower-body injury) and starting beleaguered backup Cayden Primeau was enough to make them the underdogs.<\/p>\n
Kudos to those who took the favorites because this one wasn\u2019t even close. The score flattered the road team.<\/p>\n
The injury parade continued, too, as Steven Lorentz left the game in the second period after crashing into the boards before one of the (many) scoring plays for Columbus. He becomes the sixth Leaf out right now, joining Nylander, Joseph Woll, Chris Tanev, Scott Laughton and Calle J\u00e4rnkrok.<\/p>\n
All those absences are obviously part of why Toronto is struggling right now, but they can\u2019t explain just how many brain-dead turnovers and odd-man rushes they\u2019re conceding against mediocre opponents. Columbus was particularly dangerous in this one by activating its D, with Zach Werenski, Ivan Provorov and Dante Fabbro all scoring with aggressive plays from the back end.<\/p>\n
The Blue Jackets finished with 12 shots from their D alone, nearly half of the pucks they put on Primeau, as they faced little opposition from the Leafs\u2019 porous defensive zone play.<\/p>\n
The Leafs\u2019 only goal in the first 55 minutes was another ham-and-egg play at the front of the net, with fourth-liner Sammy Blais, in his first game with Toronto, getting a bunt on a high puck for his first NHL goal since October of 2023.<\/p>\n
The Leafs did pile on the chances in the second half after going down 5-1, as score effects came into play \u2014 and John Tavares (one of the team\u2019s few bright spots this year) scored his 500th career goal in perhaps the worst possible moment, with four minutes left in the blowout loss. But Toronto\u2019s best players looked largely unthreatening and anemic for a lot of the night, especially in going 0-2 on a power play that generated just one shot on goal.<\/p>\n
The Leafs\u2019 man advantage is now down to just 13.8 percent on the season, fourth last in the NHL, and has become an unignorable issue for coach Craig Berube already.<\/p>\n
But he has to feel at least somewhat overwhelmed by just how many leaks there are in the Leafs\u2019 dike right now. Toronto\u2019s biggest strengths at each position last season were its impressive goalie tandem, Tanev\u2019s airtight shutdown defence and Mitch Marner\u2019s 102-point season, and they\u2019re all absent right now.<\/p>\n
Anthony Stolarz is already beat up and worn down, after just eight starts and an .886 save percentage, and had to sit a game out entirely on the weekend. Primeau, meanwhile, is down to an ECHL-like .838 after three games, and may well find himself back on waivers here soon enough with Woll back with the team.<\/p>\n
I don\u2019t think anyone has to worry about him getting claimed.<\/p>\n
The most troubling development of all, however, may be one Berube can\u2019t do much about: Auston Matthews, the team\u2019s $13.25 million captain, still doesn\u2019t look himself, and after another pointless night in Columbus, is on pace for just 60 points.<\/p>\n
Forget all of the many other issues facing this team right now. If Stolarz can\u2019t be one of this team\u2019s key strengths, if Tanev begins playing his age, if Matthews looks nothing like the 69-goal player he was in 2023-24, what is this team, in a best-case scenario?<\/p>\n
Probably not very good.<\/p>\n
Unfortunately, that\u2019s where the Leafs are at right now. Even if hardly anyone has been watching the carnage unfold.<\/p>\n
And the contrast with what the Jays are doing couldn\u2019t be more stark.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The Toronto Maple Leafs are certainly in one right now. Perhaps the only silver lining is that their…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":262733,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[385,99,1788],"class_list":["post-262732","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-nhl","tag-nhl","tag-sports","tag-toronto-maple-leafs"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262732","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=262732"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/262732\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/262733"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=262732"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=262732"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=262732"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}