Maple Leafs go down hard in Florida: ‘They won all the battles’

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Forgot everything the Maple Leafs have been saying about getting their game into the Stanley Cup playoffs.

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Leaf was trapped in neutral and unable to move during Tuesday night’s game against the Florida Panthers.

The final score of Amerant Bank Arena at the Panthers sunrise was 3-1, but the result was flattered by visitors.

The Panthers not only surpassed Leaf 37-18, but also made 73 attempts to Leaf 36. When your opponent shoots more than you try, you know it’s a bad night.

Considering that Leaf has only five games left before the playoffs, our losses are frustrating:

Competitive imbalance

From beginning to end, Leafs did not compete.

Their stars are not inside. Their depth players are not among them. Their goalkeeper Joseph Woll entered the game after giving up a soft goal in the first phase. Woll is the reason Leafs had a chance to tie 1-1 after 40 minutes in the third stage, but what about the field when Gustav threw a shot in the first stage?

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Although to be honest, this flaw helped cause losses, it might not matter if Woll grabbed Forsling’s shot and kept the 0-0 game.

If success starts and ends with your best player, Captains Auston Matthews, Mickey Manner and William Nyland are a big failure.

Only John Tavares scored a helpless goal, his name was on the scoring list.

Matthews scored a shot at the end of the third stage. Marner and Nylander appeared together.

Panther captain Aleksander Barkov, on the other hand, missed three games with injuries, won seven of his 10 standoffs, received assists and made six shot attempts.

If your highest-paid players can’t fight in the nervous way of defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers, what happens if the clubs meet in the playoffs?

“Of course you have to get in there and win the fight against this team,” Leafs coach Craig Berube told Florida media after the game. “We spent too much time defending time and not enough time in the offensive zone. The second stage wasn’t bad, but we didn’t generate much because they won all the battles in the offensive zone.

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“I think we moved the puck less quickly in the offensive zone.

This extends to the power of the leaves. They scored one in two strength matches.

The Leafs performed the worst in the standoff, winning only 29% (42) draws. Tavares was cleanly beaten by Anton Lundell, resulting in Fosling’s goal.

For Berube, confrontation trouble is the barometer of the game.

“They want it more than we do, it starts with the confrontation circle,” Beruber said. “It depends on competitiveness and more digging. (They are a team that is more desperate than we do.”

Every once in a while over the past few years, Leaf’s performance has kept former coach Sheldon Keefe unchanged at night, a bad game, which is blue, similar to the game after four straight wins.

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Leafs almost knocked these games out of the system, but it’s not quite complete yet. What happened Tuesday night when the playoffs began? Isn’t it great to do this, not ask this question so late in the regular season?

A knies sum

Leave it to young man Matthew Knies, bringing some clarity during the post-match supply period.
This Leafs group, of course, is part of the Keefe era, is reluctant to look in the mirror after the loss is bad.

The fresh air of the knight.

“It’s always physically (versus the Black Panthers),” Kens said. “We hope that when we come here, it will be a tough battle.

“We knew it would be like this, we tried to push back, but I don’t think we did a great job.

“We are in physical condition, I think we’re a little soft in some areas. We’re going to have to learn to do that in the playoffs.”

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Ouch. Harsh but fair. Soft is a four-letter word in the National Hockey League.

Likewise, Leaf should not ask for a reminder at this point this season. If they bring something similar to it against Tampa Bay against Thunder on Wednesday, they will definitely lose.

A victory over Tampa in the regulation would raise Toronto’s four-pointer in the Atlantic division, and then both teams have four games left. Tampa’s losses in the regulations and both teams will score 98 points.

The third time is not charming

Considering the development of the first two stages, it may not be surprising, but despite the match tied 1-1, Leaf still couldn’t lead in the third stage.

Ye Zi didn’t have any uprising as they went 2-0 with a score of 9-4 in third place.

In the final minutes, Tavares lost three games in the offensive zone, and Leaves never really threatened goalkeeper Sergei Bobrovsky, and Carter Verhaeghe had 47 seconds left to get into an empty Leaves net.

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“We just didn’t want as much,” Tavarez said. “They played hard. They worked hard. Our second phase was much better, putting ourselves in a good place, we didn’t execute enough in the third phase.

“Games without hockey are crucial, the way they support each other is crucial. When you push it on the ice, you can prepare on your toes to prepare for the next game and you are pre-playing the stagnant game, resulting in turnovers, earn more pucks in the offensive zone, and then execute.”

Tavares describes very well what Leaves didn’t do in Florida and had no choice but to do it in Tampa.

The same is more unacceptable.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @ @koshtorontosun

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