‘Immature’ Maple Leafs prove offence is not enough

An unusual word to describe the play of one of the NHL's oldest rosters.

And yet, this adjective could not be more appropriate after Toronto Maple Leafs missed another lead, missed another five and wasted another decent offensive game.

John Tavares35 years old, used the word immature after his team blew a 4-2 lead and lost 5-4 at home to a depleted Carolina Hurricanes team on Sunday.

“We have a lot of very good hockey players. We have a very experienced team, so it's just a decision to take it shift after shift,” Tavares said. “We get some traction and then we shoot ourselves in the foot again.”

Remember when the big concern in Leafland was how they could make up for an offense that lost to a 102-point player?

The Maple Leafs, who had very little action last season, have struggled through the first 16 games of this season.

And that means goals. There are a lot of them. Flooding at both ends, like the men's room at intermission.

When the dust settled on Sunday's Hall of Fame game, the Leafs had scored (59) and allowed (60) more goals than any team in the conference.

The crazy thing is that this result should have been brighter if not for all the shots on the uprights and bad breaks for the Hurricanes, who outshot the Leafs 47-20, outshot them 43-21 and outshot them 89-36, according to NaturalStatTrick.com.

“Same thing. Just details and execution. We were lucky to take the lead after two,” Leafs captain Auston Matthews said. “Repetitive things that we just can't get right.”

Both sides, who consider themselves rivals, lost their best pure defenseman in this matchup, with Carolina losing Jakob Slavin and Toronto losing Chris Tanev.

So it shouldn't have been a shock when five more goals went through a pair of subpar goalies, Carolina call-up Brandon Bussey and Toronto third-stringer Dennis Hildeby, before the contest was over with 20 minutes remaining.

Without a doubt, the Leafs need to tighten up the reins on defense, and adding a few more saves won't hurt either. (With Tanev already healthy enough to attend games, replacing Phillip Myers will eventually help some.)

“Turn after turnover cost us the game,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said. “We didn't test anyone tonight. We didn't win a single battle tonight. To me, it's just a mindset.”

The players' mood looks something like this: Yes, we need to be more consistent, but this can be fixed. And when we really try, we will be fine.

“I’m not too worried,” Leafs forward William Njalder said. “I mean, we can score. We need to be better without the puck.”

The shambolic power play ended three times this weekend, and the Leafs still lead the Eastern Conference standings in five-on-five goals (43).

In what is often referred to as a 3-2 league, Toronto has scored three goals in nine straight games and held to just two on three occasions – never lower. (They also only held their opponent below two three times.)

The Ten Leafs average at least half a point per game, with three of them being Nylander, Tavares and Matthew Niceall of whom scored again on Sunday are scoring more than one point per game. Matthews is just not himself.

Nylander's 10-game point streak is the best in the NHL. He's in the Art Ross race despite missing three games with a lower-body injury.

Veterans Defense Morgan Rielly (13 points) and Oliver Ekman-Larsson (10) are both close to surpassing last season's totals.

And hard-nosed Nick Robertson, who loves life in the top six, should have no problem finishing his career successfully if his protocols hold up.

The disjointed Maple Leafs have 99 problems to solve, but no goal.

Berube wanted his team to continue its first winning streak this weekend. Instead, his Leafs “went off the rails defensively.”

If Tanev is missing, too many skaters are coughing up pucks or neglecting assignments, and goalies aren't coming to the rescue, how exactly will the high-scoring Leafs keep the puck out of their own net?

“My job as a coach is to get them back on track, and that's what I'm going to continue to try to do. Keep working on it,” Berube said.

“We score enough goals every game to win games, but we concede too many goals. Overall this season we don't value the defensive side of the puck enough.”

Fox's Fast Five: Hall of Fame Edition

• Turns out Joe Thornton invited rookie (and fellow Californian) Nick Robertson to live with him at the start of the 2020-21 season. An opportunity of a lifetime.

A book full of unlived stories that, unfortunately, will never be written because Robertson was sent to Marly.

“Well, schedules would be disrupted, wouldn't they? It was pretty weird,” Robertson recalled. “I don't think Joe's family was there yet. But he asked me to live with him, and I was all set. Then they sent me down. That would have been cool.”

• This COVID All or nothing The season in Toronto was Thornton's penultimate one. He played one more time for the Florida Panthers. But that didn't stop him from popping into the Leafs locker room whenever the Atlantic rivals played each other.

“He was one of those guys who could get away with things like that,” Rielly said, smiling. “We welcomed him. He was just a great guy and a great teammate and he cared about everyone a lot and treated everyone with a lot of respect.”

“When you think about where he was in his career when he was here and all that he accomplished, you wouldn't know it when you spent time with him. He had time for everyone.”

• Brandon Carlo's Leafs teammates noted how loudly he takes penalties, directs traffic and shouts instructions.

That's because the lanky guard is applying a lesson taught to him early in the Boston game by Zdeno Chara.

“I wasn't talking enough in training. And he turned to me and said, 'If you don't start talking to me, you won't be here for this penalty kill,'” Carlo recalls.

“It was a great lesson for me. He wanted me to be his eyes in this situation. He was very competitive from day one, even in practice. Those habits rubbed off on me.”

• Fun fact: Berube was teammates with a young Chara on Long Island for half the season. In 2000, he knew that the raw Slovak language was something special.

“Just watching him every day, how he carried himself on the ice, in the weight room, how dedicated he was, how hard he worked, and how big and strong he was,” Berube recalled.

“As a forward, he just stifled you with his reach, his strength, his size. He could fight. He had the ability to shoot the puck and score from the point. He could control the game as a defenseman. If you think about all the great defensemen that played in the National Hockey League, most of them could control the game. Nick Lidstrom controls the game differently than Chara, but they all had the ability to control the game. And he definitely could do it.”

• Rielly, a left-handed defenseman from Western Canada, talks about what he likes most about Duncan Keith:

“When I was a young player watching him, it was his skating. Not for the reasons that (another West left-hander Scott) Niedermayer stood out because of it, but just the way he could move around the ice. Played a lot of minutes. And he was a competitor and then obviously could improve his play in the playoffs in the years when (the Blackhawks) were winning Cups. He was just the epitome of the No. 1 D.”