Toronto Maple Leafs centre Auston Matthews is a questionable starter for Wednesday’s game at Air Canada Centre against the Minnesota Wild thanks to an undisclosed injury that has been bothering him for some time.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
In hockey terms, the Toronto Maple Leafs are very much a precocious class of students still learning their trade.
The trouble is they're not always the best students when it comes to the defensive side of the game.
And even though the Leafs finally won a game after their disastrous 1-3 western road trip, they did it in such a shambolic fashion, blowing a 3-1 lead to the Vegas Golden Knights before pulling off a 4-3 shootout win Monday night, their homeroom teacher still isn't ready to send out passing grades.
"Well, I watched us last night, it wasn't exactly a perfect picture by any means," Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said on Tuesday. "We've got lots of work to do. We understand that, but I think adversity never killed anybody.
"And understanding how hard it is to win every day and how right you have to play to win every day is an important thing. I don't think we've got it yet by any means but I think it takes kids longer to learn than you would like all the time but they'll get it."
The problem now is the Leafs have to try to show Monday's win over the expansion Golden Knights was a big step in learning their lessons, only without their star pupil. Auston Matthews, who set up a big goal in the Las Vegas game with a nifty spin-around move, is a questionable starter for Wednesday's game at Air Canada Centre against the Minnesota Wild thanks to an undisclosed injury that has been bothering him for some time.
Matthews appears to have a leg injury and missed Tuesday's practice. Officially, he is not yet on the shelf for the Minnesota game, but Babcock's line shuffling for the practice suggested he is preparing for the absence of Matthews for the first time this season.
Both of Matthews's wingers, William Nylander and Zach Hyman, were dispatched to other lines. Nylander played on the right side with centre Nazem Kadri and Leo Komarov, while Hyman was put on a line with Patrick Marleau at centre and James van Riemsdyk at left wing.
Also, the Leafs sent forward Kasperi Kapanen down to their Toronto Marlies farm team and called up centre Frédérik Gauthier. This seemed aimed at giving the Leafs flexibility at centre, allowing them the possibility of moving fourth-line centre Dominic Moore between van Riemsdyk and Hyman and freeing Marleau to go back to his regular spot on the wing.
Also on Tuesday, the Leafs apparently cut ties with veteran Eric Fehr. He lost the fight for the fourth-line centre's job to Moore a couple of weeks ago and was sent from the Marlies to another AHL team, the San Diego Gulls, although he is still Leafs property.
Based on Babcock's remarks on Tuesday, the Leafs are still trying to figure out exactly what Matthews's injury is and just how serious it might be.
"He wasn't as dominant, he didn't have the same kind of power or whatever you would call it," Babcock said of Matthews's game against the Golden Knights, although it was still impressive. "When you first have something wrong with you, you want to know what it is.
"The big part of that is the mental side, then once you know what it is you can get playing through it because it's no big deal or you can get it fixed and get feeling better. We're in a holding pattern right now."
The bigger problem, though, remains the fact the youthful Leafs do not appear ready to surrender the belief they can score their way out of any trouble. This resulted in five losses in their past seven games.
Well, at least they are versatile in how they managed the run of incompetence. On the western road trip it was falling behind by three or four goals before finally starting to skate hard. Back at home on Monday night against the Golden Knights, it was pulling out to a two-goal lead, coughing it up and then winning in a shootout where defensive acumen is not required.
The common thread is that for all their skill at skating and stick-handling, this is a team that cannot handle any sort of bodychecking in the neutral zone, turning the puck over constantly.
The only positive for Wednesday's game is that the Wild are also trying to get a handle on their lineup. Minnesota is 5-6-2 this season and head coach Bruce Boudreau was shuffling his lines at Tuesday's practice.
Not that Babcock saw anything magical in his own line-juggling that should be set in stone for Wednesday night.
"I don't know what we're doing to do [on Wednesday]," he said. "We practised like this today. I wasn't in love with it by any means after watching it, so we'll figure it out."