Despite Leafs’ strong finishes, their slow starts frustrate Babcock

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Despite the fun of coaching a team full of talented and eager young players, there must be times Mike Babcock feels like pulling his hair out.

A year ago, that would have been in the third period of a lot of NHL games when the Toronto Maple Leafs head coach watched his team blow leads and turn wins into losses. Now, it's the other way around.

This season, it seems, the Leafs can't muster the enthusiasm to play hard when games start. While the Leafs can lay claim to a decent trip – they won two of three games and come home with four of a possible six points – this season's bad habit cost them a 2-1 loss to the Vancouver Canucks on Saturday night.

"The bottom line is if you want to be a real good team you've got to play every day," Babcock said.

"You've got to play every night and start on time if you're going to be successful.

"There was nothing wrong with our effort in the second and third [periods]. Those details, we really played, none of that was a problem. You've got to start on time. You spend the whole night giving away two points because you didn't prepare."

Something else that might bother the coach is that it is not clear the message about playing hard from the opening faceoff – the Canucks took a 2-0 first-period lead in the latest example – is sinking in. The players' ability to score enough goals to overcome a bad stretch and pull out games in the third period, and even overtime, might be making them a little too confident.

"I think we're past those lesson games, we had enough of those last year," Leafs centre Auston Matthews said. "I think you just got to make sure you come to the rink on time and work hard. We didn't start on time [Saturday] and that's going to cost you. It's not a lesson. We know what we need to do, we've just got to make sure we do it."

The trip's schedule, and the way Babcock and his staff prepared for the three games, maximized the players' chances of being fresh for a strong start in Vancouver. There was one day between each game and Babcock gave the Leafs the entire day off Friday after they beat the Edmonton Oilers 6-4 on Thursday.

Also, there was no game-day skate on Saturday in Vancouver because the Leafs met the Canucks at 4 p.m. Pacific time so the game could be broadcast in prime-time in Eastern Canada. And the Leafs still didn't show up until the second period, dominating the game from that point on but failing to produce a goal until James van Riemsdyk scored at 17:08 of the third period.

"We spent the whole night playing catch-up," Babcock said. "We had lots of opportunity, their goaltender [Jacob Markstrom] was good and they made some blocks and all that. In saying that, we weren't ready to go at the start and if you play catch-up hockey, it's usually losing hockey."

The thing was, there was just a little too much yeah, yeah, yeah in the Leafs players' reactions when the trip ended.

"We obviously want to start on time but it's great to see we can turn it back on," goaltender Frederik Andersen said. "It wasn't enough, but two really good periods.

"You don't always get rewarded for that, so we've got to learn from it."

Defenceman Morgan Rielly, who missed an open net in the final minute for what could have been the tying goal, hit the same notes as Andersen.

"Kind of put ourselves down a little bit but for 40 minutes we battled hard and played pretty good," he said.

"I think we had a good road trip. Coming in [Saturday] we knew the importance, knew we had a chance to sweep the road trip.

"We knew what we had to do but obviously not our best start. Move on from it and just keep pushing."

The Leafs have a chance this week to show what they've learned.

Two of their three opponents are the same ones they beat last week, the Calgary Flames (Wednesday) and the Oilers (Sunday) with a tough game in between against the Penguins in Pittsburgh on Saturday night.

Babcock expects the lesson to sink in quickly. "If we play right, we've got a chance to win most nights," he said.