TAKEAWAYS: Every Maple Leaf on the hook for brutal loss to Senators

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The Maple Leafs were terrible in a 3-0 loss against the Ottawa Senators on Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena.

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There’s no sense beating around the bush, so let’s get to our takeaways from a game that dropped the Leafs to 9-6-2.

POP-GUN OFFENCE

The Leafs miss captain Auston Matthews. Any way you cut it, no matter their good record without him, their ability to win should rise when Matthews is in the lineup.

As Matthews sat out for a fourth game in a row with an upper-body injury, the Leafs again didn’t have anything to show on the scoreboard at five-on-five.

Toronto has scored one goal at five-on-five in its past five games, and that was supplied not by a forward, but by defenceman Conor Timmins in the win against Montreal on Saturday.

Against the Senators, the Leafs were disjointed from the minute the puck was dropped to begin the game. With the way that Ottawa forced the Leafs into errors in the defensive zone, there was little chance Toronto was going to be able to regroup.

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In turn, Linus Ullmark had a relatively easy night in the Sens net.

At five-on-five, Ottawa outshot Toronto 36-16 and had 60 shot attempts while limiting the home team to 28.

It’s inexcusable that the Leafs have not been able to patch together any production at five-on-five. If it’s not a concern, it should be eating away at the coaching staff a bit.

The personnel is there. Before Tuesday, as happy as coach Craig Berube was with the defensive structure, it was not leading to goals at the other end. And on Tuesday, the Leafs didn’t even have that structure to back them up.

“We didn’t have the puck, so it’s pretty tough to get score any goals,” Berube said after the game. “They had the puck the whole game, pretty much, until the third period.

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“We have to generate more attempts with people at the net. Going in, we were pretty happy with our game.

“We want to score more five-on-five, for sure. But at the same time, we can’t sabotage the game like we did right away in the game, give them a 3-on-1 (in the opening minute) and they score. That’s not going to work.”

The Leafs have been shut out twice this season after they had scored in every game since Nov. 20, 2021. And it was the first time in 120 home games that the Leafs did not score a goal.

FLUSH THIS

As easy as it is to say you flush the game and move on, that shouldn’t have been the attitude of the Leafs as they travelled to Washington to face the Capitals on Wednesday night.

Sure, they had little choice. Turning their attention to trying to stop Alex Ovechkin was paramount.

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Still, the flight to D.C., we would surmise, would have been quiet.

After all, the Leafs had no excuses on Tuesday after having plenty of time to prepare following their most recent game on Saturday.

A solid practice on Monday followed an off-day on Sunday.

“We should be disappointed,” centre John Tavares said. “We can say we can wash this one, but I think it’s disappointing (with) the way we’ve been playing over the past week. (We had) a good chance to carry it over after a couple days, a good work day yesterday and (playing) a divisional opponent. It’s good for us that we get to get right back at it and get our game back on track.”

Nothing Berube did got the Leafs out of their slumber, whether it was mixing up his forward lines or getting animated on the bench.

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“I’m trying to find something, but overall, there wasn’t much, at all,” Berube said.

The Leafs also had poor outings against St. Louis and Columbus in October. Was this as bad as it has been?

“Pretty close,” Berube said. “It wasn’t good. The other games we lost, there were different situations … tonight, we didn’t have control of the game at all.”

CAST OF CHARACTERS

The veteran defence pair of Morgan Rielly and Oliver Ekman-Larsson, on the eve of his 1,000th game in the National Hockey League, had a night to forget.

The two were on the ice for 18 Senators shots on goal in 13-plus minutes of five-on-five play, and neither played with anywhere near the kind of poise we’ve come to expect.

Singling them out would be unfair to the rest of the group, as no one had anything to brag about. Only Tavares finished above 50% in possession, and 10 Leafs were at less than 30%.

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Mitch Marner’s eight-game scoring streak ended with thud, while Max Domi’s pointless streak has hit 11 games. Bobby McMann, who was supposed to take a step forward this season, has not scored a goal in 13 games. Nick Robertson remains at one goal, now in 15 games.

William Nylander played after missing practice on Monday for maintenance, saying that his body was worn down. But he added he felt better during the game, and yet made no difference.

In short, the lopsided loss fell on the shoulders of every Leaf.

“They were faster than us and outworked us,” defenceman Chris Tanev said. “You’re not going to win playing like that.

“It’s on us, obviously (we were) not ready to play. Right from the first shift of the of the game, they out-competed us.”

Goalie Anthony Stolarz, who has been sharp, didn’t let himself off the hook. Truth is, the final score would have been uglier if not for Stolarz.

“I guess we’re all human,” Stolarz said. “It’s an 82-game season, and you’re not going to play a perfect 82 games, myself included. That third (Sens goal by Michael Amadio) is one that I’m going to want back … momentum swing there. They get one, get another one (in a span of 43 seconds). I take credit on that one.”

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun

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