The Toronto Maple Leafs continue to reel and have a collapse of epic proportions as their playoff hopes are now just a pipe dream. The Maple Leafs are looking to next season and the possibility of the draft lottery if they continue to fall further in the standings. Given the rest of their March schedule, that might be the case.
After selling off assets at the deadline– with a lot of debate on their returns– their play as a whole continues to get worse and it showed with their 5-2 disappointing loss against the Tampa Bay Lightning. With the season gone, they’re playing for pride at this point. However, given their effort, that’s not even evident. Recently, a comment made by head coach Craig Berube post-game is a summarization of the season.
Play to Win, Not to Lose
It’s been a common theme with Berube’s post-game comments, where it’s the same assessment of his team’s poor play. He once again made it clear against the Lightning and talked about their mentality in each game, even though they had a decent start.
“We got to come out to play to win the game, not lose the game,” Berube said post-game. “When a goal goes in, or two goals go in, we kind of protect too much and not stay on our toes and play.”
This has been something that has been detrimental to the Maple Leafs ever since returning from the Olympic break, especially over the last three games. They’ve got off to decent starts, setting the tone early on and scoring within the first five or six minutes of a game, all of them scored by Matias Maccelli. Then, they lose their focus, sit back and start to reel with the play that has put them in this position all season with poor defensive efforts, getting hemmed in the defensive end too often and costly mistakes and turnovers leading to goals.
Then there are games where they get completely outplayed and outclassed by their opponent. There were the back-to-back games against the Lightning and Florida Panthers, the 5-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators where they scored first and faced 16 straight shots after that in the first period and the third period collapse against the New York Rangers, ultimately losing 6-2. Berube talked about the lack of “intensity, directness” and not doing the right things in order to win after that game.
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This isn’t just a funk or part of the season where things get tough, this has been evident from the start of the season where these games happen too many times and this team’s true side shows.
Fragile Mindset
To put it simply, especially after they have gone 0-5-2, when things get tough, this team becomes extremely fragile and they can’t find their way out of it. They lack the pushback to win or even show any sign of life in any game, which has become the identify of this team along with the inconsistencies and lack of production throughout the lineup.
There’s a reason why their effort and mindset are being constantly brought up, because this has been an issue for some time as this team still can’t figure anything out. Look at the Buffalo Sabres’ recent 8-7 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Sabres haven’t seen the playoffs in 14 seasons and after another rough start, they finally turned it around and gave the Lightning a fight. Literally, as it was a physical affair and the Sabres pushed back all game to win. Their culture is changing where they’re showing they want to win and they’re not going down without a fight.
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Where is any of that fight and pushback with the Maple Leafs? There was a stretch from December to January where maybe that was starting to show, but that fizzled out quickly. There’s no life with this team and this season proves that when they need to respond and bounce back, there’s none of that to be found. You’re not going to win without the right mindset and the Maple Leafs don’t have it.
