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TORONTO – Until now, the Maple Leafs have not been consistent this season and head coach Mike Babbad believes that a greater accountability of his players is an important part of the solution.
"If you do something moved in your family, they will keep you grounded, but they can," Babbad said after Wednesday's training at the MasterCard Center. "That same kind of love must be in our room. We are ready to share, we are ready to stand up and say, "Hey, you do not do it right." And all of us I think it's a very important thing, but I also think it's a process, and we're in this process now. "
After expressing frustration over how the Leafs were eliminated on Monday, Babbad tinkered with the training on Wednesday. He met Mitch Marner with John Tavares and Zach Hyman, and bumped Kasperi Kapanen the Nazem Kadri align with Patrick Marleau. Kapanen was also removed from the first power play team to benefit Marleau, while Hyman slipped into the second group.
Before Marner and Kapanen moved between the lines, the league's top six strikers scored a combined minus-7 over the Flames, a disappointing lap after scoring six points on three goals to complete their victory over the Jets. Winnipeg. only two nights before.
"We seem to be a good team some nights and other nights we are not so good," Babbad said. "We have to find a way to do things right every day. When you form good teams, with as much fun as you have, these teams are sometimes more grumpy because you make each other responsible, and we have to do it here. "
Leafs players often tell how close they are, with young base pieces like Marner, Matthews, and Hyman climbing the ladder on top of each other. With new faces in view and rising expectations, translating this closeness into success on the ice every night has not been an easy task for the Leafs through 12 games.
"We do not help enough on the ice as attackers," Marner said. "There are times when we do not work as hard as necessary. I think that as a group we need to get together more, speed up and get back to what we were doing and that was successful, namely: [being explosive], help each other on one side and support each other. "
For Marner, it is easy to note that the teams have "tightened a lot" compared to the start of the season, when the Leafs reached a 6-1-0 record and found themselves almost at the top of all the offensive categories of the season. the NHL. This type of adjustment is expected. It was the Leafs who did not seem to have an answer.
Toronto is 2-3-0 in its last five outings while standing out 14-9. With as big a hole as Matthews leaves in training, no player will replace his contributions (10 goals, 16 points in 11 games).
"I think that our entire group of people coming forward is putting more pressure. He's not just a guy, "said Marner, who is tied with Matthews for the Leafs at 16 points. The person we lost is a big part of our team, a big part of our attack. We must all go ahead and fill that gap by playing as we know it [leads to] wins, and that does not give the other teams a lot of time and space. "
The time it will take for the Leafs to become a more consistent team remains to be seen, but the adversity they are currently experiencing may well help them to achieve this.
"It takes several games [to build an identity]; you have to find yourself, "said Babbad. "When you are not a team at the test of the fight [like] Tampa and Nashville … they went through that, they were crushed. They have been doing it for several years. You get an identity, you can be more consistent. We try to find our way. "
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