Toronto Maple Leafs Blow Huge Opportunity

The Toronto Maple Leafs have dropped two consecutive games and are beginning to fall behind in the Atlantic Division. Toronto hosted the St. Louis Blues in Craig Berube‘s first game against his former team. However, the Maple Leafs displayed a weak performance as they lost 5-1. Two days before this game, the Leafs were dismantled by the Columbus Blue Jackets 6-2. As a result of failing to bounce back, Toronto regressed to a 4-4-0 record.  With this loss, they drop to fifth in their division.

In this loss, Toronto saw many defensive breakdowns. The Blues took advantage of several slot opportunities that were given to them. These slot chances were given up by poor coverage by the Leafs defence. Joseph Woll had to deal with many uncontested shooting chances in his season debut. After only conceding two or fewer goals per game in the season, they’ve let in 11 goals in the last two games.

Toronto’s division is a competitive one and every point counts. There are many juggernauts in their division such as the Florida Panthers, Tampa Bay Lightning, Boston Bruins and even the Ottawa Senators. Because of how tight the Atlantic is, there’s a little more to it than making the playoffs. With the current playoff format, winning the division should be a goal for the Maple Leafs. Clinching the division would give them a favourable matchup when it comes to the playoffs, something they haven’t experienced in a while. Therefore, a hot start to the season would’ve been ideal for Toronto (as it would for any franchise).

After six games to the season, the Leafs were 4-2-0 and were playing great, dominant hockey. On top of that, their divisional rivals weren’t doing so hot with their respective starts to the year. The Leafs had a clear path to take a solid lead on the rest of the division. However, with these last two games, Toronto are steering in the wrong direction. In the standings, the Maple Leafs sit behind the Senators and the Detroit Red Wings. Those are two teams that didn’t make the playoffs last season, suggesting that there are more teams to worry about this time around.

Things could be a lot worse for the Toronto Maple Leafs. While they’ve put together two pathetic performances in two consecutive games, it’s no time to panic. Despite the .500% record, this is nothing abnormal for the Leafs, or any team early in the season. In the last four seasons, this is what Toronto looked like after eight games:

With that data, this isn’t such an awful start as some feel. In addition to this, looking at other teams in the Atlantic Division, the Leafs should consider themselves lucky. The Bruins and the Lightning both lost in their respective games. This keeps both the clubs in reaching distance for Toronto and the rest of the division. In fact, the Leafs are only three points off the Panthers who are the leaders of the Atlantic. Toronto also holds a game in hand against Florida.

Aside from the division, the Leafs aren’t the only team starting on the wrong foot. There are teams in much worse positions, three teams in the West are guilty of that. The Edmonton Oilers, Colorado Avalanche and Nashville Predators all wish to be in Toronto’s shoes. All those teams have less than four wins and sit out of a playoff position in their respective divisions. Each of those teams also has star-studded lineups that can’t seem to mesh. Much like in Leaf Land, many fans are scratching their heads trying to figure out what is going wrong with their hockey clubs.

Main Photo Credit: John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images