The Toronto Maple Leafs have been letting leads slip away lately, and they aim to change that trend when they host the Calgary Flames on Monday night.
The Maple Leafs twice had one-goal leads over the Ottawa Senators on Saturday night before their 4-2 home loss.
It has become an annoying trait for a team that has pretensions of making a long playoff run. They have had the lead in their past four games and have one shootout win and three losses to show for it.
Ottawa iced the game with a late empty-net goal. The other goals were the result of a defense that not only is bending but breaking at the worst of times.
“I thought their three goals were all about losing battles inside the blue line,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “We didn’t win enough battles there and that’s an area of the game, it’s urgency for me and details in the first two periods that weren’t there, but when we decide to have urgency and do things the right way, we’re a way better team in the third but we’re behind and sometimes you don’t come back. We had chances but that’s what happens.”
Auston Matthews scored a gift goal for Toronto after Ottawa goaltender Linus Ullmark misplayed the puck. William Nylander also scored for the Leafs.
“I think the margins have been really small the last couple games but just details, details in our game I think haven’t quite been there,” Matthews said.
“And it’s on us to figure that out and we’ve got to get it through our heads that all these games, especially some of the teams we are playing, are going to be playoff-like games. There are teams fighting for their lives, trying to make a push. They are desperate teams like the one we played (Saturday) so we have to wrap our heads around that and just be better all-around as a team.”
The Maple Leafs have lost five of six while the Flames are 4-3-3 in their past 10 after their 4-2 home loss to the Colorado Avalanche on Friday.
Flames coach Ryan Huska felt too many of his players were not fully into the game but “maybe three quarters” in.
“That’s the frustrating thing for me, more than anything, because I felt like they were ready to go,” Huska said. “I just felt at times they respected them way too much early in the game.”
Calgary was without Mikael Backlund (upper-body injury), who has been listed as week-to-week. They also will be without Connor Zary, who will serve the second of a two-game suspension on Monday.
The game in Toronto is the opener of a four-game road trip for the Flames, who are vying for a Western Conference wild-card spot.
“Four-of-four is the goal, of course,” Flames forward Ryan Lomberg said. “We’ve got to go. It’s not the time where you can go .500 on a road trip, and certainly not less than that. I think three-of-four is probably right where we want to be. Four-of-four would be the bar with what we’re trying to achieve.”
The Flames have lost two in a row, including a 4-3 shootout home loss on Wednesday to the Vancouver Canucks, who also are in the wild-card race.
The Leafs defeated the Flames 6-3 at Calgary on Feb. 4. Nylander netted a hat trick in that game for Toronto, while Matt Coronato, Yegor Sharangovich and Joel Farabee scored for Calgary.
–Field Level Media
