TORONTO — There’s a robotic quality to what’s playing out on the Scotiabank Arena ice these nights. A sense of going through the motions. The season is lost, the captain is sidelined, the men at the helm seem not long for this city. The club’s pride has been questioned, its leaders have been questioned, this whole era has been questioned. But still, there are games to play.
Friday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs waded through another one, an up-and-down bout with the Carolina Hurricanes that wound up as yet another loss in a campaign overflowing with them.
For much of the night, it seemed a familiar display. The Maple Leafs managed to break through early — Dakota Joshua finishing off a sequence spurred by Bo Groulx, who’s been a rare bright spot on a team for whom the lights have all but gone out — before Toronto undid its own efforts a period later, allowing the Canes to stack a power-play goal, a penalty-shot tally and a short-handed marker in the middle frame.
“I thought it was pretty competitive all around — the difference is we took too many penalties,” head coach Craig Berube said after the dust settled on a 4-3 Canes win. “Unnecessary on a couple of them — trips, stuff like that, penalties you can’t take. And then gave up a short-handed goal. Just not recognizing pressure.”
As has been the case since that night against Anaheim a week ago, when this team’s lack of fight was put on display for all to judge, the Maple Leafs once again worked to prove themselves resilient Friday, battling through a dominant effort from the conference-leading Hurricanes and clawing their way to overtime.
It was William Nylander who netted the late tying goal, picking up the puck in the corner and dancing around Jaccob Slavin to stuff his 24th of the season past netminder Brandon Bussi, earning the Maple Leafs a point that large swaths of its fanbase likely could’ve done without. Still, it was the opposing side who wound up victorious again — for the second straight game and the 15th time in Toronto’s last 20 tilts.
Familiar as the eventual result was, on the other side of the glass, it was a less recognizable scene. There were still t-shirts tossed into the crowd, still fan-made signs flashed across the jumbotron, still dance music pumped through the arena speakers on every possible occasion. But there were empty seats too, a notable number of them, dotted throughout the stands. There were momentary outbursts from the home crowd when the action crescendoed, but more lengthy stretches of quiet.
This one will be another tick added to the tally, the club’s 13th overtime loss. But what can really be taken from Game No. 70 in a campaign that’s already slipped away? In a season now being closed out without stakes? For moments Friday night, it had the feel of a pre-season bout. And in a sense, it was — a game that meant little, for a city simply waiting for next season to arrive.
Still, there are 12 games left to play. And as they showed Friday, the Maple Leafs will continue to fight their way through each of them, perhaps in penance for how they fell short in defending their captain, perhaps simply because they’re professionals.
“We want to play good hockey and continue to compete,” said veteran John Tavares, who tallied Toronto’s second goal of the night off a spinning shot coming out of the corner. “You know, you get an opportunity to play in the National Hockey League, you never take it for granted. You want to go out there and play well. You want your game to look like your game.”
It’s much the same situation for netminder Joseph Woll, who turned aside 32 of 36 shots on the night.
“The biggest thing for me is, whether something’s positive or negative, it’s always a learning experience,” the goaltender said Friday. “So, I’m just trying to stick to my process and learn how to adjust it if necessary. I’m hoping to play as much as I can and do whatever I can to help the team win. And with that, learn as much as possible.”
For the man guiding the ship, though, the time for lessons has long passed. It’s gotten away from Berube here, the progress of last season a distant memory. And at this point, with it all so clearly off the rails, the coach feels comfortable simply calling it like it is.
“He’s played well, but tonight, in the end, we need a save,” Berube said of his netminder late Friday, bluntly. “Whether it’s the OT, or one of the breakaways, you just need a big save there.”
If there is one bit of positivity amid a stretch that’s been sorely lacking it, it’s Groulx, the 26-year-old AHL journeyman who continues to make good on this late-season opportunity. The Toronto Marlies’ leading scorer added another point to his big-league tally Friday, making it five in six games since being called up.
“He just seems to have a good sense of where to be,” Tavares said of his fellow centreman. “Getting the puck in good spots, and not trying to overcomplicate things. I think just taking the plays that are there. Obviously I think he’s got some good legs and a really good release. He’s capitalized on the opportunity here, which has been great for us.”
“Confidence is everything,” said Groulx himself of what’s been going right for him this month. “If you’re coming into a game and you’re not confident, you’re going to make mistakes that you don’t usually do. You’re going to be hesitant. … I feel like right now I’m playing free-minded out there.
“I know what I can do at this level, and I think I’m showing it right now. … If I can work on my face-off game, and how to recognize the situation defensively a little bit faster, I think I can be a good player in this league.”
He’ll get another chance to make his name Saturday, when the Maple Leafs take the ice in Ottawa for his first taste of the Battle of Ontario. A meeting that comes a month after the Senators came to Scotiabank Arena and put the Maple Leafs through a 5-2 drubbing, after Ottawa’s captain publicly criticized Toronto’s response to the Radko Gudas incident, and as the Sens desperately try to ensure their own season doesn’t similarly end without playoff hockey.
“It’ll be a competitive game again,” Berube said. “They’re always a tough team, we know that. And they’re going to be fired up to play us. So, we’ve got to be prepared and we’ve got to be ready for a competitive game.”
