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Toronto Maple Leafs coach Ron Wilson opened his address to the media yesterday with what could have been the beginnings of a speech to last year’s team, a group that finished 24th in the NHL standings in April and had similar shortcomings with physical play.

“We just have to compete harder,” Wilson said. “Be willing to go into dangerous areas and battle when we’re there.”

A night earlier, Wilson’s team had been outworked and outclassed in a 5-2 loss to the Minnesota Wild, undoing much of the momentum the Leafs had put together in a 3-0-4 run, and the coach felt that he knew exactly why.

“The other team’s trying to score, too, and if you don’t get physical, you don’t win those battles,” Wilson said. “I mean it’s pointless to even show up on the ice to be honest with you. That’s what we have to practise. It’s not fun, but you have to do it if you want to succeed at this level.”

That physicality, and willingness to battle, was said to be general manager Brian Burke’s main target in the off-season – “truculence,” he called it. To that effect, players built like Coke machines, including Mike Komisarek, Garnet Exelby and Colton Orr, were major additions to the lineup.

Sixteen games into this season, however, the Leafs are not on course to have more hits or blocked shots and their 3-8-5 record remains well off the modest 81-point pace set a year ago. Toronto has played far better the past few weeks after an eight-game winless skid to open the season, boosted by two more newcomers in Jonas Gustavsson and Phil Kessel, but the Minnesota game revealed some warts that remain.

For one, several returning players – with defenceman Luke Schenn leading the way – have regressed. The penalty kill remains in the NHL’s basement, with a rotating cast taking a turn playing a man down, and inopportune penalties continue to offer opponents prime opportunities to take early leads.

Overall, the Leafs are still a team that has scored far fewer goals and allowed more per game than the 2008-09 edition, and save for a few good outings, has yet to consistently make use of its newfound muscle in a positive way.

The Leafs’ next two games will offer a real test, too, as they play back-to-back this weekend against two Western Conference opponents miles ahead of the Wild in the standings.

For the second week in a row, Toronto plays on the road tomorrow and at the Air Canada Centre one night later, this time facing the Chicago Blackhawks at the United Center before flying home for a date with the Calgary Flames on Saturday.

Making things tougher still, the Blackhawks are a league-best 7-2-1 at home, while Calgary has a sparkling 5-1-1 record away from the Pengrowth Saddledome.

Wilson indicated yesterday that struggling netminder Vesa Toskala would likely pick up one of the starts to give rookie Gustavsson a needed breather. Komisarek, meanwhile, could sit with a charley horse that has hampered him the past four days, meaning Exelby would draw back in on a third defence pairing Wilson has been at times unwilling to play.

Neither changes should be considered positives for a team approaching the season’s quarter-way mark with just three wins, but several Leafs vowed yesterday to do their part to raise the team’s on-ice truculence this weekend.

“I think that’s important all the time,” Exelby said. “Any time you make it really hard for the other team, make them not want to play you, be apprehensive every time they go in the corner, I think that’s the mentality we want to have. We want them to come to Toronto and hate playing here, and we want that reputation to spread around the league.”

Let’s call it a work in progress.