Maple Leafs face more tests after slow start to season - The Globe and Mail

Toronto Maple Leafs' T.J. Brodie protects the puck ahead of Tampa Bay Lightning's Brayden Point and Alex Killorn during first period NHL hockey action in Toronto on Nov. 4, 2021.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press

After a slog through their first 11 games against mostly pedestrian opponents, it is very much uphill from here for the Maple Leafs. Beginning with Boston on Saturday night, their next three opponents are a combined 27-5-1.

Beating the Bruins at Scotiabank Arena, the Hurricanes in North Carolina on Sunday and the Golden Knights back in Toronto on Tuesday would amount to a breakthrough after a 5-4-2 start. A loss to each would likely leave the Maple Leafs in a crisis.

“They are great teams to go up against,” Mark Giordano, Toronto’s warhorse at 39, said after practice on Friday. “We consider ourselves a great team as well so it will be a good test. They are the type of games you look forward to all year.”

Boston burst out of the gate at 10-1 and has won seven in a row. Goalie Linus Ullmark has won all eight starts, best in the NHL. Carolina was 7-2-1 with a game at Buffalo on Friday. Vegas is 10-2, boasts one of the game’s best centres in Jack Eichel, and already beat Toronto this season. The Golden Knights have won six in a row.

These aren’t the Arizona Coyotes, San Jose Sharks or Anaheim Ducks – each of whom the Maple Leafs have already come up short against.

“Last year when push came to shove we responded very well,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said of the team’s usual penchant to play better against top teams. He would only speak about Saturday’s game and not the others in a stubborn coach’s one-game-at-a-time way. “Boston is going to give us a lot to handle.

“They have been a great team in the league for many, many years. It’s a great challenge but it is also an opportunity. We believe in ourselves so I am excited to have the opportunity for us to against the top team in the league.”

It is the first of four meetings between the Atlantic Division rivals and the Bruins have often inflicted great pain.

“They are a really good team,” said Morgan Rielly, the Maple Leafs defenceman. “We’re pretty used to those guys so I think we know what to expect. We are kind of at the point in the season where we are in the swing of things. We’re ready to roll.”

Rielly will be paired on the blueline with Timothy Liljegren. It will be the first game in the 2022-23 campaign for the 23-year-old from Sweden who had surgery for a hiatal hernia just before training camp .

“It was weird,” Liljegren said. “I had been here for two weeks before I got a stomach ache. I didn’t think much of it but I told the trainers and got it checked out and it turned out to be a hernia.

“It is unfortunate and kind of a slow process, but it is good to be back.”

Toronto Maple Leafs goalie Frederik Andersen defends the net against St. Louis Blues defenseman Alex Pietrangelo during the second period at Scottrade Center.Jeff Curry

In the next 10 games, Toronto also plays Pittsburgh twice, a resurgent New Jersey team twice and Buffalo once. For whatever reason, the Sabres always give the Maple Leafs fits and more often than not leave them with losses.

Toronto had lost four in a row before it gave Philadelphia a 5-2 licking on Wednesday in what was likely its best overall performance of the year.

In that encounter John Tavares scored three times and now has seven goals on the year, and Auston Matthews got his fourth. The teams combined for 70 minutes in penalties and a melee occurred in the final two minutes when the frustrated visitors realized the game was out of reach.

After Travis Konecny took a swipe at Matthews, Giordano leaped on Konecny’s back and then fought Flyers forward Kevin Hayes. It looked like something out of the WWE only real.

“I had some buddies send video clips of it to me and stuff like that,” Giordano, who has had 18 fights in a career that dates to 2008, said with a laugh. “It was a fun moment. Those situations happen over the course of the year.

“There was some back and forth throughout the game. Their guys were making a point of getting in our goalie’s face every time he tried to cover up a puck. It was on us to push back. At the end it was pretty basic. It was our top guy that they were going after and we stepped in and it was a pretty good response.”

The Maple Leafs will need that same fighting spirit in the next short while for sure.

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Maple Leafs face more tests after slow start to season - The Globe and Mail
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