Maple Leafs vs. Wild: Mistakes lead to yet another loss on home ice for Toronto

Detailed summary

Nothing is going right for the Toronto Maple Leafs. A hat trick by Matt Boldy — two of them gifts due to mistakes by Troy Stecher and William Nylander — led the Minnesota Wild to…

A hat trick by Matt Boldy — two of them gifts due to mistakes by Troy Stecher and William Nylander — led the Minnesota Wild to a 5-2 win over the Leafs on Thursday night at the Scotiabank Arena.

“We probably played well enough, but it’s not good enough, clearly,” said coach Jim Hiller. “We can’t take moral victories in playing close and losing. We’ve done that too often.”

When Michael McCarron scored on a third-period power play, the arena’s game operations crew played “Bittersweet Symphony,” a ’90s anthem by The Verve. The lyrics were apropos. “From one day to the next, I can’t change my mould,” go the lyrics of the chorus. The song ends with “Have you ever been down?”

The Leafs have lost all five games so far in a six-game homestand, with the finale on Saturday against Connor McDavid and the Edmonton Oilers. The Leafs are yet to post a win in November, have lost seven of their past eight — all in regulation.

They have been talking a good game about fixing mistakes. But actions speak louder than words. Boldy was the benefit of a Stecher turnover in the first period, and Nylander basically abandoned any idea of checking Boldy for his hat-trick goal that made it 3-2 early in the third.

“It was a weird situation that happened,” said Nylander. “Tracking (Ryan) Hartman, he goes into the middle. It’s between me and OEL (Oliver Ekman-Larsson), a miscommunication on who should take Boldy, who should take Hartman.”

And as has become custom, Leaf goaltending couldn’t bail the team out. This night, it was Anthony Stolarz. He made a number of terrific saves, but one in either of those moments might have changed the outcome, or at least the momentum of the game.

“Thought I tracked the puck well, made some key stops,” said Stolarz. “It’s just an unfortunate couple of bounces. Sometimes that’s how it goes.”

Mistakes are going to happen, but why are they happening so often with the Leafs’ No. 1 overall

Opening of the article, excerpted from Toronto Star. To read the rest, open the article on the publisher's site.