\u201cLike, with losing? I don\u2019t know if I\u2019ve felt like this, before,\u201d Nylander answered. \u201cIf I\u2019ve had a stretch like this, I\u2019m not sure. I don\u2019t feel like I\u2019ve had that in the NHL, at least.\u201d<\/p>\n
That\u2019s not the only postgame interview that recently raised some concerns in the Leafs locker room. Auston Matthews has said he believes his team is fine mentally, while of his teammates have raised the Leafs\u2019 mentality as a concern.<\/p>\n
These answers came two days after Sportsnet\u2019s Elliotte Friedman said the Leafs are going to \u201cbe forced into existential questions\u201d unless they turn their season around.<\/p>\n
Changes have already started. The Leafs announced Monday night the dismissal of assistant coach Marc Savard, who was in charge<\/a> of managing a power play that currently ranks<\/a> last in the NHL at a 13.3 percent success rate.<\/p>\n Auston Matthews is on pace to finish this season with 32 goals. That would be the lowest single-season total of his career, and it\u2019s an abrupt decline from a player who led the entire NHL in even-strength scoring<\/a> through the first nine seasons of his career.<\/p>\n The Athletic\u2019s Dom Luszczyszyn and James Mirtle<\/a> recently floated a few ideas as to what\u2019s going on with Matthews. They include the Leafs\u2019 overall struggles with possession, head coach Craig Berube\u2019s decision to give Matthews a tougher defensive workload and the absence from his line of Vegas Golden Knights forward Mitch Marner.<\/p>\n Matthews isn\u2019t the only one struggling to find the back of the net recently. The Leafs\u2019 core of him, Nylander and John Tavares, alongside Matthew Knies and the now healthy scratch candidate Max Domi, have combined for a single goal during the Leafs\u2019 last three games.<\/p>\n Tommy Novak – Sidney Crosby – Bryan Rust<\/p>\n Anthony Mantha – Rickard Rakell – Justin Brazeau<\/p>\n Rutger McGroarty – Ben Kindel – Ville Koivunen<\/p>\n Connor Dewar – Kevin Hayes – Noel Acciari<\/p>\n Parker Wotherspoon \/ Erik Karlsson<\/p>\n Brett Kulak \/ Kris Letang<\/p>\n Ryan Shea \/ Jack St. Ivany<\/p>\n Goalies: Stuart Skinner and Arturs Silovs<\/p>\n Potential Scratches: Danton Heinen, Ryan Graves, Connor Clifton<\/p>\n IR: Blake Lizotte, Evgeni Malkin, Filip Hallander, Caleb Jones<\/p>\n Sidney Crosby, the Penguins\u2019 all-time leader in points, has points in each of his last six games against the Leafs (2-7\u20149 over that stretch, per the Penguins<\/a>).The Pens have a few players who could hit games played milestones tonight, depending on if Stuart Skinner (199 career games) or Connor Clifton (399 career games) are in the lineup. Brett Kulak is meanwhile preparing to play in his 300th straight game, which currently marks the ninth-longest<\/a> Ironman streak in the NHL.Yesterday was a travel day<\/a> for the Pens. Injury and line updates could be expected this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Who: Pittsburgh Penguins (15-11-9, 39 points, 7th place Metropolitan Division) @ Toronto Maple Leafs (15-15-5, 35 points, 8th…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":365736,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[66],"tags":[257,385,99],"class_list":{"0":"post-365735","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-nhl","8":"tag-general","9":"tag-nhl","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365735","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=365735"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/365735\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/365736"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=365735"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=365735"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=365735"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/Screenshot-2025-12-22-at-3.40.27\u202fPM.png\"\/)
<\/a><\/p>\n