Maple Leafs' offence sputters in 'worst' showing of series yet

TORONTO — The stakes couldn’t have been clearer.

After all these Toronto Maple Leafs have been through in post-seasons past, after years of trudging through games with the cloud of that playoff misery hanging above them, there was no questioning what was needed in this pivotal Game 4: They needed something special, something exceptional. Something to break through this suffocating mediocrity, and pull them back to level ground. They needed greatness.

Instead, on a night that would either even this series or send them back to Boston with their season on the line, the Maple Leafs came up with their most lacklustre showing yet.

“Tonight, this game offensively would be our worst,” a quiet, dejected Sheldon Keefe said from the bowels of Scotiabank Arena late Saturday night, after the dust settled on a 3-1 win that pushed his team to the brink of elimination. 

“The other three, I think we’ve done a good job to generate enough chances to win and score more than we have. Today, both on the power play and at five-on-five, it wasn’t nearly good enough.”

The Game 4 drubbing saw his club post its fewest shots of the series so far, mustering only 25 on the night. And even that sum might exaggerate the level of danger felt by Boston’s Jeremy Swayman, the majority of those seemingly pucks floated at the netminder from distance, easily turned aside or gloved, Toronto’s attack repeatedly cut short just as quickly as it began.

Five nights ago, when the Maple Leafs stitched together what seemed to be a tone-setting win, their offence led the day. It poured 22 high-danger scoring chances on the Bruins’ cage, according to data from Sportlogiq, 14 of those coming at even strength. On this night, they managed only seven, total. 

In that Game 2, they’d earned 13 chances off the cycle, five off the rush — tonight, they managed just six off the cycle, and exactly zero off the rush. They’d put pressure on the Bruins, getting the edge in chances off turnovers — on this night, Boston doubled them on that front, earning eight chances to Toronto’s four. The two teams had each earned three odd-man rushes in that Toronto win — here, with stakes even higher, the Bruins overwhelmed the Maple Leafs, earning nine to the home side’s two.

“They try to funnel a lot of pucks to the netfront,” explained Bruins defender Brandon Carlo, of how his defence corps shut Toronto down Saturday night. “We did a good job converging to our netfront, keeping them to the outside. That starts off the rush, not allowing them to make those plays to the middle. … I think we did a pretty good job of that.”

“I thought we turned down some shots,” Toronto’s Morgan Rielly assessed himself. “You know, when we did get offensive zone time and we did get things toward the net, there was some stuff happening. But not nearly enough.”

“It would be nice to get one on the power play,” added William Nylander, who returned to play his first game of the first-round tilt. “I think that’s a major factor in this series. … We’ve got to get to the middle of the ice, find those chances in the middle of the ice in the O-zone, and limit our mistakes in the D-zone.”

The flaws in Toronto’s game are plenty, and the impact on this series has been seismic. Even the opposing coach didn’t see it shaking out this way — asked Saturday if he was surprised at just how well his Bruins have been able to stifle the Maple Leafs’ attack in this series, after a regular season that saw Toronto’s scoring corps rank among the most prolific in the league, head coach Jim Montgomery admitted he was.

“Very surprised,” the coach said. “It’s a great effort by both our goalies, and our commitment to being above the puck and playing the right way. … We didn’t think if we allowed Toronto to score, that it would be a very good series for us.”

So far, they haven’t — a fact the Scotiabank Arena faithful loudly expressed their frustration with Saturday night, the home crowd raining boos down on their club more than once throughout the evening. 

Still, it was the frustration at ice level that seems more troubling for the team’s hopes in this first round — in the throes of the Maple Leafs’ most disappointing offensive performance of the playoffs, the broadcast spotted Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Nylander caught up in a heated argument on the bench, one that ended with Marner angrily tossing his gloves to the ground.

Asked about his thoughts on the row post-game, captain John Tavares sighed.

“Well, a lot of guys have been here for a while,” he said. “Just continuing to try to push each other, to want more — obviously it’s an important time of year.”

“You know what, that’s just the way we are,” Nylander said of the spirited debate. “We expect a lot from each other. We love each other, so just to push each other, have a high ceiling, I think is great.”

“We’re grown men,” added Marner. “We’re talking about plays out there, that we just all want to make sure we’re all 100 per cent on, and know what we’re doing. Just a little bit off-page there. We’re not yelling at each other because we hate each other — we just want to all be on the same page.”

With the season on the line, the future of this core once again in question, it’s a troubling sign. Frustration from the stands, and inside the locker room, seems to be nearing a boiling point. And the balance of performances from the opposing cores in this series isn’t helping matters — on one side of the aisle, the marquee talents have largely gone cold, looked out of sync, been held in check. On the other, it’s been all game-changing performances from leaders Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak.

For the latter group, the formula for stepping up when the lights are brightest is a simple one.

“This time of year, you have to want to be part of it,” said Marchand Saturday. “You have to want to make a difference. We just seem to have that in the group right now.”

Added his coach, when asked about his two all-world scorers: “In the playoffs, you need your big-time players to make big-time plays. And they’re doing it for us.”

Now, after fumbling three of four games in this series, the Maple Leafs’ big-time players will have just one more chance to author some big-time plays of their own. But there’s no denying the odds seem stacked against them. 

An ongoing illness that’s held Matthews back from giving his all finally caught up with him Saturday, keeping the reigning Rocket Richard Trophy winner off the ice for the third period of Game 4 — and leaving his status for Game 5 murky. A bout with injury kept Nylander out of the lineup until this night, and while the 40-goal talent showed glimpses of his elite skill in Game 4, he looked far from the game-changer he’s been all season long for this team. Meanwhile, Marner’s dealt with criticism from Game 1 of this series, and despite scoring Saturday, has yet to impact a game in these playoffs as he does during the regular season.

“Yeah, there are things we need to look at there,” Keefe said of his group’s collective offensive woes in the wake of Saturday’s loss. “We’ve got to get Willy going, and involved in the series. We’ve got to hope that these couple days are going to help Auston to come back and be himself. And then as a group, we’ve got to find ways to break free.

“In the meantime, if we’re not going to be able to score at a high rate, we’ve got to minimize these types of mistakes that we’ve made, that end up in our net.”

It’s a hefty list for a team that has just one game to put it all together. Tuesday night, under the TD Garden lights, they’ll have their chance.

“It’s important for us to regroup here,” said Rielly of what must happen before then, “and go into Boston with lots of motivation, lots of competitiveness. Our season’s on the line.”