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The Maple Leafs talk has turned to adversity and its time for them to act on their words

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    Terry Koshan Leafs winger Nick Ritchie drills Brett Pesce of the Hurricanes with a heavy check on Monday night. A little more of this attitude likely wouldn’t hurt the team’s bid to shake its early-season doldrums.  J Leafs winger Nick Ritchie drills Brett Pesce of the Hurricanes with a heavy check on Monday night. A little more of this attitude likely wouldn’t hurt the team’s bid to shake its early-season doldrums. J Photo by James Guillory /USA TODAY Sports Article content

    Just two weeks ago â€" it seems much longer than that â€" Jake Muzzin talked about anger.

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    Taking questions from the media on the morning of the club’s 2021-22 regular-season opener, the veteran Maple Leafs defenceman noted that players were “pissed off” after the Leafs fell apart in the playoffs against the Montreal Canadiens last spring and there was a “little anger” in the group as it returned for training camp.

    “We’re going to need that throughout the whole season,” Muzzin said on Oct. 13.

    As the stumbling Leafs blow into the Windy City for date with the hapless Chicago Blackhawks on Wednesday night, we wonder: Where has that anger gone?

    The Leafs haven’t met the lofty standard they hold themselves to, never mind what’s expected of them in Leafs Nation, skittering to a record of 2-4-1.

    A club that went to lengths to convince itself during the off-season that it’s a legitimate Stanley Cup contender and would learn from past failures has done nothing of the sort.
    Suddenly, the Leafs are a group that, in the words of Sheldon Keefe, could learn a thing or two from the Carolina Hurricanes, alleged by the head coach to be a Cup contender after they bottled up the Leafs 4-1 on Monday night.

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    Sure, it’s early. But do you really think the Leafs figured they would be in this spot barely 14 days into the season?

    If the Leafs beat the Blackhawks on Wednesday, don’t bother trying to measure whether Toronto has taken a step forward. Hawks captain Jonathan Toews and star winger Patrick Kane were among a handful of Chicago players on the COVID protocol list on Tuesday and, without a victory in six games to start, the Original Six franchise has brought embarrassment with its play (which is nothing in comparison to the details in the independent investigation, made public on Tuesday, into a sexual assault allegation involving the team in 2010).

    If the Leafs lose? A reminder that they don’t play again until Saturday in Toronto against the Detroit Red Wings, a void in which there would be time for changes to be made.

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    The Leafs are a team that says a lot but often doesn’t take the next steps to rectify its collective lot in life. It’s an organization that hits reset on everything but the core when the annual post-season failures occur and then can’t get past yet another insurmountable hurdle.

    The buzz word following practice in Chicago on Tuesday might have sounded familiar.

    “Everybody comes into the year fresh with enthusiasm and wanting to be world-beaters to begin and now we face adversity,” veteran centre Jason Spezza said.

    “The true test of a group is how you react to this type of adversity.”

    So there’s a recognition, at least, that talk won’t solve the problem.

    “It’s a good thing to go through adversity if you can come out on the other side of it and learn from it and make your team better because of it,” forward Alex Kerfoot said. “But it’s easy to say that and we’ve actually got to go out there and do that. It’s not a good thing if we let it spiral and we start losing a bunch of games.”

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    For Keefe, the Leafs’ work ethic isn’t necessarily an issue.

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    “You can’t survive in the league if you don’t work hard,” Keefe said. “Everybody is working hard. But there’s another level to get to and I think we’ve yet to get there. That’s the reality.

    “The good teams are the ones that are doing it most consistently. And they’re keeping that focus all the time. It doesn’t come and go, and that’s where we’re at.”

    Keefe has discussed the fact that he likes what the Leafs do for stretches in games, that they get their scoring chances. Puck management, though, especially in the defensive zone, hasn’t been up to par, and turnovers are becoming more common.

    “We have lots of great ingredients and good players and we’ve played some good hockey, but some good hockey doesn’t cut it,” Keefe said. “We’ve got to put it all together.”

    The stars should be the most accountable. Mitch Marner has one assist in seven games, Auston Matthews has one goal in four games and captain John Tavares has three points in seven games.

    For Spezza, it has to be a group approach.

    “A big thing for our guys is realizing that we get out of this as a team,” Spezza said. “We’re not looking for one or two guys to climb us out of this. It’s really a team sport, hockey.”
    A healthy dose of anger just might help the collective cause.

    tkoshan@postmedia.com

    twitter.com/koshtorontosun

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