With Sunday’s loss in New Jersey, the Toronto Maple Leafs have extended their losing streak to five games. In all five games, the Leafs have played an abysmal first period, putting themselves in a hole that they ultimately can’t climb out of. The team’s defence is horrendous, and it doesn’t help that starter Jonathan Bernier has been sidelined with a groin injury (although James Reimer probably doesn’t deserve as much hate as he’s getting from Leafs fans). Just a few weeks ago, everyone was pencilling in the Leafs for a second consecutive post-season appearance, starting to think less about whether they’d make the playoffs, and more about who they’d play in the first round. Now, however, they’ve effectively erased the success they had on their California road trip. Strong play from the Red Wings, Blue Jackets and Capitals have bumped them out of a wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference.
Sportsclubstats.com says that the Leafs now have a 34.5% chance of making the playoffs, a number which was just under 90% just over a week ago. To make it into the post-season, they’ll likely need at least 92 points. They currently have 80, with 9 games remaining. 12 points in 9 games is absolutely not impossible, however the Leafs’ hopes will also depend on the Wings and Jackets getting fewer points in 11 games. That’s much more worrying and its clear that with every loss Maple Leafs Playoff hopes shrink.
The worst part is, there’s no light at the end of the tunnel for this woeful team. Dave Bolland, whom many believed would be the Leafs’ saviour, is back in the lineup, and there’s hardly been any improvement. With every day that passes, we Leafs fans are returning to a feeling we know all too well – the feeling of utter disappointment.
I agree wholly with this great article by Jake Snider. Randy Carlyle is not the man who should be coaching the Toronto Maple Leafs. He’s too old-fashioned, and refuses to change a system that clearly isn’t working. Once a player gets into his doghouse, he’s facing an impossible climb out of it – Mikhail Grabovski, Jake Gardiner and James Reimer all come to mind. But it’s ridiculous to form an opinion on a player for a few poor performances. That’s the nature of sports. Athletes do well sometimes, and sometimes they stink.
All of last season, and much of this one, critics and advanced stats geeks around the league have predicted this downfall. God-awful possession stats and an unsustainable shooting percentage have proved to have been decent indicators of this collapse. It certainly doesn’t help that they’re currently playing with a goaltender whose confidence has been totally shot to bits. At the end of this season, there won’t really be much they can do to improve, either. Yes, the salary cap is going up, but Bolland, Nikolai Kulemin, Jay McClement, Mason Raymond, Cody Franson, Jake Gardiner and Reimer will all be free agents come July 1st. Some of them, at least, will have to be re-signed. They’ll also be dragged down by the mammoth David Clarkson contract, who has been terrible in his tenure with Toronto. The Leafs can’t really do much about that contract, either, as it’s pretty much impossible to trade.
Perhaps management will realize that they can’t become true contenders with Randy Carlyle at the helm. Perhaps they’ll realize this isn’t the 80s anymore, and teams actually have to play defence. And perhaps they’ll bring in a coach who knows how the modern game works, and that a team has to have four competent lines to have success. However, things don’t look too bright for the Leafs.
So, it looks like this season, for which Torontonians had so much careful optimism, will be down the drain for the Leafs. All the spectacular goaltending performances from both Bernier and Reimer will be for naught. In the Leafiest of fashions, the proverbial eighteen-wheeler is once again falling off a cliff. This article has probably been pretty depressing for Leafs fans – believe me, it was depressing to write. But this is really how I feel about this team.
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