PHILADELPHIA – Mike Babcock is digging in.
Amid a three-game losing streak, and with a couple underperforming veterans holding down key spots in the lineup, the Toronto Maple Leafs coach is resisting any urge to shake things up.
There will be no new faces in the lineup for Thursday’s game against the Philadelphia Flyers. No changes to the forward lines or defence pairings. Nothing more than fourth-line minutes at even strength for Connor Brown, who had a strong performance in Tuesday’s 2-1 overtime loss to St. Louis despite seeing just 15 shifts.
“So why don’t you canvas the top nine and see who wants to give him that? You know what I mean? My wife can tell me what’s wrong, but in our business you’ve got to find a way to figure out what’s right,” Babcock said, when asked if he’d like to find more playing time for Brown. “Do you know what I mean by that? So who am I taking out?”
Point taken.
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In his shoes, you can understand why he wouldn’t be inclined to break up the top line of Zach Hyman, Auston Matthews and William Nylander. There’s been plenty to like about the James van Riemsdyk–Tyler Bozak–Mitch Marner trio the last few weeks.
It’s the “shutdown” guys who aren’t scoring, but Patrick Marleau, Nazem Kadri and Leo Komarov have done a commendable job of neutralizing opponents. Kadri’s only been on the ice for three even-strength goals against during the 17-game stretch where he’s managed to score just one power-play goal himself.
Reflecting on the 20 games he’s gone without an assist, Kadri says he’s been “very unlucky.”
“I think I’ve had lots of opportunities to get in those positions and to set up my linemates for scoring chances and to score myself, but it just hasn’t been dropping for us,” he added. “I mean we’re playing with the puck, we’re playing up against these all-star-calibre lines and we’re still finding ways to create offence and generate offensive scoring chances.
“Sometimes you’re not scoring, but you’re going to change the momentum of the game and I think sometimes we’ve been able to do that.”
The way they performed against Paul Stastny’s line on Tuesday “set us up to win the game,” according to Babcock.
“I think that whole line hasn’t been as effective offensively, but in the chances they’ve been effective offensively,” said Babcock. “So when Leo gets those chances and doesn’t score, we’ve got to believe it’s going to go in on shooting percentage-wise.”
That basically sums up his approach through a stretch where the Leafs have gone 5-6-3 since their last visit to Wells Fargo Center, a 4-2 loss to the Flyers on Dec. 12.
He believes they’re on the right track even if the results haven’t shown it. With the calls for change growing louder around him, he’s holding firm.
“I went through it here this morning,” said Babcock. “I’m looking at it ‘Jeez, we’ve got to generate more shots’ and then I go through it and I look at all the shots we generated the last little while. [Then I think] ‘We’ve got to spend more time in the O zone’ and when I look through it we spend quite a bit of time in the O zone.
“Last game, the chances were darn close to even. I thought it was a good game and a good team we were playing against. To me, the biggest thing is just steady on the rudder, keep ‘er going here and play well without the puck and we’ll spend more time in the O zone.”
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