Toronto Maple Leafs: Costly defensive mistakes overshadows strong effort

In a game which should have been an easy win for the Toronto Maple Leafs turned out to be a wakeup call for a team making simple mistakes.

Many Toronto Maple Leafs fans were left scratching their heads after Saturday night’s 5-3 loss to the Ottawa Senators.

After winning against the Montreal Canadiens in overtime, this was a game that should have been an easy win for Toronto. Instead, it became a trap game and the Leafs took the bait, outplaying Ottawa but making a couple of costly mistakes which ended up being the difference.

It starts in net with Frederik Andersen who didn’t silence his critics with a poor effort against the Senators allowing four goals on 24 shots. The Leafs peppered 37 shots on Craig Anderson who was good when he needed to be even though he allowed three goals.

A big criticism has been the Leafs’ blueline and while they had a tough night against the Habs because of the volume of scoring chances they allowed, against Ottawa it was the breakdowns which led to easy scoring chances.

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On this play, the Leafs get caught scrambling after losing the draw with four defenders all covering the right side of the defensive zone leaving Josh Leivo on his own. As the puck gets moved around nobody picks up Dylan DeMelo waiting for the pass at the point so he’s able to move in closer, receive the pass and snap five-hole on Andersen who should’ve saved it.

After the Leafs took the lead thanks to a great pass by Mitch Marner to Morgan Rielly and Auston Matthews wiring a shot past Craig Anderson, it didn’t take long for Ottawa to take control.

It started with Thomas Chabot making Tyler Ennis look foolish getting around his poke check effort and collecting his rebound to put it past Andersen who had a lot of traffic in front of his net. Then a turnover in the offensive zone allowed Chris Tierney to go in and put a shot between the legs of Andersen.

After Marner blew past the Senators defence to tie it again, it seemed like the Leafs opportunity to seize momentum and put the Senators away, instead, Chabot undresses Igor Ozhiganov with a nice move and tuck it under Andersen’s arm.

It would have been nice to see Ozhiganov play the body rather than try to go for the puck but give Chabot credit for the move he pulled off.

While losing to the Senators is not an ideal situation, this is only the second game of the season. Andersen isn’t going to play like this the whole season and the Leafs will start to make the necessary adjustments. It would help if the Leafs defenders were to close the gaps a bit more and put more pressure on the puck carrier rather than collapse back.

Again it’s still way too early to pass judgements on what happens in the second game of the season but hopefully, these mistakes are corrected going forward.

What did you think about the defensive play last night? Is it too early to overreact? Let us know in the comments below.