Plauderecke » of the game and continued to play a harder

TORONTO – Earlier in the week, after yet another flawed victory for his team, Randy Carlyle warned of how quickly the tide could change without improvement. It took two, maybe three games for the mood of an excitable market to shift, for that excitement to devolve into concern. We all get induced by winning, said Carlyle on Saturday morning. Were human beings. Winnings great and sometimes you let some certain things go. We dont want to hamper [our team] and come down hard on not playing well and winning, but the reality is we all know that you cant continue to play loose hockey and have success. His concerns continue to prove warranted. Increasingly sloppy and porous play has caught up to the Leafs in recent days, the club dropping its second straight in poor form on Saturday evening. The Flyers lit up the scoreboard with seven goals in a wild affair at the ACC. It was in many ways a culmination of whats been plaguing the group more and more in recent weeks. Stephane Robidas claimed that those troubles came down to details slipping, the desired structure of playing the right way trending in just the opposite direction. Its not like weve got to change the whole way we play, said Robidas after the 7-4 loss, stretching his arms out wide as he spoke as if to indicate that wholesale changes werent needed. We know how to play. We know we can play the right way. Weve done it. Weve proved it to ourselves. Its not like weve never done it. Reverting to the old and troubled formula of leaning too hard on their goalies with turnovers and porous defensive play, the Leafs have been bitten when that goaltending hasnt risen to a super level the past two nights. Carolina fired 36 shots at Jonathan Bernier on Thursday and scored four – the latter into an empty net. Philadelphia peppered Bernier with 41 more on Saturday, whistling seven past the 26-year-old before he was pulled mercifully for James Reimer in the third. Both of them have been outstanding for our team, Dion Phaneuf said of the goalies, but when we force them to have workloads like that its too much. We have to got to cut down our shots against. Toronto has been outshot 38-28 on average in the past eight games, yielding 34 on average this season. Only Berniers heroics previously and a scorching offence allowed success to last as long as it did under such circumstance, the Leafs winning 10 of 12 in a run that rivaled their flawed pre-Olympic burst last season. History proved then that terrific goaltending can stand up only for so long to lackadaisical defensive play before it eventually breaks. We left Bernie out to dry tonight, Peter Holland said, scoring his eighth goal in defeat. Hes been nothing but unbelievable for us for the last little bit. Its not fair to those guys and we need to be better for them. Saturday gradually evolved into an embarrassing night for the Leafs, one somewhat reminiscent of the teams blowout 9-2 loss to Nashville last month. The Leafs actually scored the first two and had another lead at 3-2, but squandered both leads with sloppy puck play, loose defensive coverage and little of the structure theyve been hoping to play with. Carlyle observed how difficult it was for his team to even execute a simple breakout pass. It was like the overall execution of the simplest things was a challenge for us after the 10-minute mark, he said. Tonight, the bottom line is that they played harder for the final 50 minutes, Phaneuf added. Theres no other breaking it down or any other words to describe it. Concluding their 22nd home game with a loss, the Leafs will play their next seven on the road, starting Sunday in Chicago against the fearsome Blackhawks. Five Points 1. 10 Minutes Pegged for two goals in a jumbled start two nights earlier, the Leafs actually came out with energy and engagement in the opening frame on Saturday. Morgan Rielly found Joffrey Lupul open in the slot for the games first goal, James van Riemsdyk adding another on the power-play 49 seconds later. But after R.J. Umberger beat Phaneuf to a rebound in front of Bernier the style of game loosened and the Flyers gradually took control. They seemed to just push the pace of the game and continued to play a harder game than we did, Phaneuf said. I think that we took our foot off the gas pedal after we scored early. We just didnt regain any traction the rest of the game. I think some games were not ready to start and then obviously tonight we did get off to a good start and then we just laid back a little bit, Holland added, thought it was going to come easy to us again. Saturday marked the first time all season that the Leafs have lost when scoring the first goal. They dropped to 14-1-0. 2. Defence Still leading the league in offence, the Leafs have nonetheless tumbled down the rankings in two basic and yet revealing defensive categories. The club now sits 24th overall in yielding 2.94 goals per game and 27th in surrendering 34.1 shots per game. Both stats mirror the groups porous finish last season. 3. Erratic Carlyle tried to calm the Jake Gardiner storm Saturday morning after calling his play erratic on Friday. Jake fits into the rest of our group, Carlyle said with evident frustration ahead of the game against Philadelphia. Weve been erratic, simple as that. Gardiner, however, wouldnt dispute the original assessment from his head coach before being scratched for the third time this season. Yeah, that pretty much sums it up, he said of his performance. Ive been good and bad. I just need to be more consistent. Beyond sitting him out (or exploring a trade) the Leafs really are limited in their options with the 24-year-old. Patience – as difficult as that may be given his struggles – and continued prodding may be their only real options. That was the approach last season when Gardiner struggled for two thirds of the year before emerging as the teams best defenceman during an ultimately ruinous stretch-run. Its what led the club to sign him up long-term and indicative of just how quickly these situations can change. 4. Tough Road Back David Booth has just a goal and two points in a quiet first month of action with the Leafs. Booth broke his foot late in training camp, missing the first 21 games of the season. Its a gap that can be difficult to make up, the competition – both internally and externally – racing ahead. Thats true, said Booth. Its really tough to step in there after missing so much. You want to get back as soon as you can and sometimes you just force getting back sooner. No matter when you come back – if you feel ready, if you dont – its going to take time to get in there and feel in game shape. You train all summer for that training camp, to get in shape there and then you get a whole month of working at it and then to have that taken away from you is really tough. But Ive done it before. You just learn from it. You learn theres no way around it other than just playing games. The 30-year-old, who signed for a year at $1.1 million, says the comeback was made especially difficult by the type of injury (foot) which limited conditioning work. Its everything, he said of the challenge. Every part of the game; your shot, your skating, mechanics, everything. Booth played 10 minutes against the Flyers, finishing with one shot and no points. 5. Shake-up Midway through Thursdays game in Carolina, Carlyle finally broke up the struggling line of Phil Kessel, James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak. The trio had been a big-time negative for the Leafs at even-strength in the past month, providing little offence while yielding quite a few shots and goals against. Weve got to shake some things up to get our 5-on-5 play better, Carlyle said, the Leafs near the bottom of the league in possession at even-strength. In doing so, he teamed van Riemsdyk up with two of the teams strongest possession players in Nazem Kadri and Mike Santorelli, also flipping Joffrey Lupul back onto the side of Kessel and Bozak (a look that dates back to the Ron Wilson days). We think theres ample supply of talent on each line, Carlyle said. And that we can mix and match any of those nine forwards with anybody. We think that van Riemsdyk can fit in there [with Kadri and Santorelli] and that Lupul and Bozak and Kessel can provide offence also. And thats not to say that Clarkson and Holland and if its Panik, if its Winnik, or whoever it is, cannot provide offence also, theyre offensive players. The changes did provide some early offence, but did little to alter a game that increasingly tilted in the oppositions favour. Carlyle reverted back to the combinations of previous weeks by the time the third period got going. Stats-Pack 38 – Average shots surrendered by the Leafs in the past eight games. 1st – Loss for the Leafs when scoring first this season. 369 – Points for Phil Kessel as a Leaf, placing him in a tie for 22nd in team history. 12 – Points in the last 11 games for James van Riemsdyk, who scored his 15th goal of the season against the Flyers. 48-33 – Possession advantage for the Flyers on Saturday. Special Teams Capsule PP: 1-4 Season: 20.7% PK: 3-3 Season: 83.9% Quote of the Night When you give up seven goals its a lot more than just a certain group of people or one individual. -Randy Carlyle, declining to single out any one player after a 7-4 loss. Up Next The Leafs visit the Blackhawks on Sunday evening. 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