TORONTO — For all the nuance that can sink a team’s night out on the sheet and all that comes of the complicated alchemy of building chemistry in a locker room that’s seen half a squad turned over, there are some outings that boil down all too simply to the missteps easily diagnosed. A few ill-timed penalties here, a few shots off the bar there, and you end up on the wrong side of things.
That much was clear Saturday night as the final buzzer sounded on a messy 3-2 loss under the Scotiabank Arena lights, the Toronto Maple Leafs dropping the latest iteration of the Battle of Ontario as the Ottawa Senators claimed their first win in their first tilt of the campaign.
It was a roller-coaster affair from the get-go. A strong start from the home side, a late goal from the visitors to close out the opening frame, a dominant follow-up a period later as the two sides traded goals.
For a stretch there, it all seemed to be coming together for the new-look Maple Leafs — Auston Matthews tipped home his first goal of the season 30 seconds into the second period, Kirill Marchenko potted his first in blue-and-white via a fantastic sequence on the man-advantage six-and-a-half minutes later. The provincial rivals headed to second intermission tied at two goals apiece, with Toronto outshooting their visitors heftily.
Then came some pivotal third-period stumbles — an errant high stick from Marchenko during a battle in the corner with Tim Stutzle, a tripping infraction from Jack Roslovic moments after Ottawa’s power play capitalized on that Marchenko penalty — and the night’s earlier progress was upended.
“I think we needed to finish some of the chances we had — we had enough chances to win the game, there’s no question — and then just careless penalties,” head coach Jim Hiller assessed after the dust settled on the Maple Leafs’ second loss of the season. “I thought the two penalties in the third period really hurt us, just took our momentum away a little bit, and gave them some life. And they pushed hard.”
“Just got a little undisciplined at the end,” captain Auston Matthews added. “You’re trying to chase it the last six, seven minutes, to find one. We weren’t able to do it.”
While the fans in the Scotiabank Arena stands rained boos down on the officials as Marchenko was sent to the box, as Stutzle dragged himself back to his feet, the blue-and-white’s coach shrugged aside the notion it was a questionable call.
“I haven’t looked at it that closely, but it’s a stick battle,” Hiller said. “A stick comes up, it’s a penalty. That’s just the way it works. Got to keep your stick down.”
“The refs obviously see what they see. It’s a quick game, and you have to respect that,” Matthews said of the play. “I think we could definitely do a better job with our sticks. You know, we took a high-sticking penalty, a tripping penalty. It’s just being better with our sticks.”
The other side of the Maple Leafs’ special-teams battle left much to be desired by the end of the night, too.
Though a second-period flourish brought the first goal of the season for Toronto’s top power-play unit — with Darren Raddysh whipping a pass down to Marchenko near the goal line, the winger darting to the net and roofing a backhand over Linus Ullmark’s blocker — a late-game Maple Leafs man-advantage stumble, with a chance to knot things up, left Hiller deflated.
“We needed it to come up big at the end. You know, that’s the one that we all leave the building with,” the coach said post-game. “We just weren’t dangerous. There were some really good moments, but if you evaluate the last one, when we really needed something to happen, we were disappointed in that one.”
His captain echoed the sentiment, acknowledging the growing pains still being ironed out with the new-look unit.
“I thought it was a little bit loose,” he said of the final power-play chance. “But I think all in all, adding new guys in there, it’s just moving pucks quickly and trying to outnumber them down low. We’ve got a lot of weapons there, so it’s just trying to not overpass the puck. Just move it quick, get some shots on net, and try to attack as much as possible.”
Added fellow top-unit mainstay William Nylander: “The last power play was two sloppy plays by me, but I think other than that, we had some good looks on the power play, too. I hit the crossbar, Raddy gave me another pass and I just missed the net, Kirill hit a post. We had a lot of chances, so I think it’s just staying positive.”
There were no doubt signs of forward movement, of chemistry building. While the final score will show a narrow Maple Leafs loss, an even shot total, the first half of the tilt saw Toronto stringing together some of its most promising moments of quality yet this season. The only issue is a fair few of them rang off the post, clanged off the bar.
Progress, even so, in Hiller’s eyes.
“I’m not one to make excuses, but someone said we had six or seven posts or crossbars. Lots of iron,” the coach said. “Those are good chances, typically.”