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After consecutive 4-1 losses to the Boston Bruins on Monday and Thursday (the irony of that score cannot be lost), the Toronto Maple Leafs have to be questioning where their club is and how optimistic their outlook should be six weeks from the Stanley Cup Playoffs and with hours remaining before the NHL Trade Deadline.
The loss was another lackluster effort against an Atlantic Division rival, especially one that has continued to frustrate and dominate the Leafs going back to their seven-game playoff loss in 2013. The Bruins with this week’s victories all but guaranteed home-ice advantage in the first round against Toronto, and kept them alive in the race with Florida, while the losses have Toronto anchored in third place in the Atlantic, waiting for the loser of the battle for first place.
The reality is that Toronto will be a severe underdog against either division foe. The Panthers play a sandpapery, rough-and-tumble game that is not conducive to what the Leafs like to play, and the Bruins continue to rent space in the heads of Toronto players. Whether it be the past traums like Zdeno Chara sucker punching John Tavares, Nazem Kadri’s selfish undisciplined acts that resulted in crippling suspensions in 2018 and 2019, or 4-1 in Game 7 in 2013, the Leafs have a mental block when it comes to playing a Boston team whose stars come to play when it counts.
There were some standouts in the loss, especially the pushback shown by Max Domi, Jake McCabe, and Tyler Bertuzzi to the Bruins usual borderline antics, but other than a nice goal by Mitch Marner in the second period, the Leafs core group did not show up.
Auston Matthews and John Tavares were nearly invisible in both contests, and the giveaway made by William Nylander on Trent Frederic’s breakaway goal in the second period is the second instance of his lack of defensive awareness in a week.
The issue now in front of the Leafs before 3 pm is what GM Brad Treliving will do to try to improve the club. Toronto has already used up five future draft picks in deals for depth defensemen Ilya Lyubushkin, Joel Edmundson, and prospect blueliner Cade Webber.
Webber, a 2019 draft pick of the Carolina Hurricanes, is a senior at Boston University and was acquired for a 2026 sixth-round pick. The 23-year-old blueliner is 6’7”, 210 lb. (fitting Treliving’s preference for big defensemen), and has six assists in 30 games this season with BU. He will have to be signed by this summer or Webber will become an unrestricted free agent.
Although Lyubushkin and Edmundson are fine depth additions with playoff experience who provide the Leafs with intangibles they do not currently possess, the question is whether this club as currently constructed is an experienced fifth or sixth defenseman away from being a Stanley Cup contender.
The answer to that question is a resounding no.
Toronto is a group with uncertainty in goal, a lack of at least two top-four defensemen, and a lack of enough quality up front to take some of the onus off of Matthews, Marner, Nylander, and Tavares. The better course of action would have been to ride this season out with the current group to see how far they could go without exhausting more future assets after Kyle Dubas did the last few years.
Speculation is that the Leafs are looking for a depth add, possibly a defensive forward to help out their sorely-lacking penalty penalty-killing unit. We shall see if they do anything more impactful.
Toronto Maple Leafs Blogger • 
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