The Toronto Maple Leafs had a great opportunity to respond to Tuesday’s loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets with a tilt against head coach Craig Berube’s former team, the St. Louis Blues, on home ice. Instead, they made costly mistakes and followed up with another loss by a deficit of four goals — something they haven’t done since 2015.
Maple Leafs lose back-to-back games by 4 or more goals for the first time since February 28-March 1, 2015
— Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) October 25, 2024
Considering February 28-March 1, 2015 was the back half of the 2014-15 season when Peter Horachek was at the helm following the dismissal of Randy Carlyle, this…isn’t great. It wasn’t a floodgates type of loss like the one to Columbus earlier in the week, but they made stupid mistakes to set themselves back whenever they got a shred of momentum back, whether that’s lazy play from the top line leading to a Columbus goal minutes after the Leafs cut the deficit to one or a turnover from William Nylander leading to the 4-1 goal for the Blue Jackets. Berube was seen giving it to his top line of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Matthew Knies following the 3-1 goal.
Berube’s not happy with the top line after that goal against pic.twitter.com/g3wzoWYAR4
— Omar (@TicTacTOmar) October 25, 2024
Berube added context to this clip speaking to the media after the game, noting that he wasn’t happy with their careless play leading to the goal immediately after they got on the board themselves.
“Again, the third goal is just not doing things right. It was lazy hockey on the goal. That’s the bottom line.” he said.
He later elaborated on why his team has lost two games in a row in similar fashion, noting that much of it comes from abandoning the good habits they built up to start the season.
“I think a lot of that in the last two games, for me, is our whole team has gotten a little cute,” Berube said. “We just gotta play direct. We don’t need that kind of thing, you know?”
Berube continued to hone in on the team’s defensive coverage (or lack thereof) having given up 11 goals in their past two games, but he brushed off questions about the Columbus loss and reiterated that he was only going to answer questions about the game that had just taken place.
“Well, I’m not going to go back. We’re just losing coverage. We’re not helping each other out in coverage,” he said. “There’s too much time and space on some of them instead of being physical and closing legs out. Some of them are mental mistakes.”
“For me, we’re giving up too many odd-man rushes right now and we gotta get that, that’s number one. The last two games we were pretty good in that area and we gotta fix that. That’s the problem right now. And, you know, you’re gonna go through tough times like this during the year and you gotta find a way to dig out of it and get the guys better. We all gotta be better. Myself included.”
While the top players’ lackadaisical performance was a theme tonight, Auston Matthews and William Nylander both took ownership for the loss.
Auston Matthews: “Just a bad game all around, up & down our lineup, it starts with me.”
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) October 25, 2024
William Nylander: “My play was stupid there in the third period. Gotta be better than that.”
“At that point in the game, 3-1, I mean, 17 minutes left, there’s still a lot time … That’s gotta be better situational awareness on my part” https://t.co/jo69loGgm0
— Mark Masters (@markhmasters) October 25, 2024
The Maple Leafs are back in action against the Boston Bruins on Saturday night, who have gotten off to an underwhelming start for their standards with a record of 3-4-1. It seems dramatic to call this a must-win game, but having lost two in a row and currently sitting out of a playoff spot against a team experiencing similar struggles early on, the Leafs should have some extra motivation to get up for the game and take one of those crucial division games they’ve always struggled with.
