Maple Leafs try to rebound vs. Ducks (Feb 04, 2018)
TORONTO -- The Toronto Maple Leafs and the Anaheim Ducks meet Monday night at the Air Canada Centre after a humbling weekend.
The Maple Leafs had a four-game winning streak stopped Saturday night when they were dominated in a 4-1 loss to the Boston Bruins.
The Ducks lost 5-2 to the Montreal Canadiens on Saturday afternoon at the Bell Centre, two days after losing 2-1 in overtime on Thursday in Ottawa to the Senators. The losses followed a 3-1 win by Anaheim over Boston on Tuesday.
Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock gave full credit to the Bruins for their play Saturday.
"I thought they were quicker, better, executed harder and had more players going than we did (Saturday) and it showed," he said.
Ducks coach Randy Carlyle was not making excuses for his team's loss Saturday, either.
"We turned the puck over on the first one and it ends up in our net," Carlyle said. "We get three guys caught down low on the next one. And the rush shot was post and in. Yeah, we thought we had a decent start, but we were down 3-0 and they only had (seven) shots on net. We got to be better than that for 60 minutes."
The Maple Leafs defeated the Ducks 3-1 on Nov. 1 in Anaheim.
The Maple Leafs (30-19-5) sit third in the Atlantic Division and the Bruins are a possible early playoff opponent for them. Toronto goaltender Frederik Andersen, however, said the focus must remain on the immediate future and getting things right against the Ducks (25-18-10).
"We know how we play best so we've just got to stick to that and I think go to work tomorrow and be ready for Monday," Andersen said. "I think we should take it as a challenge and there's a long way to go.
"Right now, we're focused on what's ahead on Monday. I don't think there's any reason to look that far ahead (to the playoffs) yet. We've still got to keep playing and take that when the time comes."
Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly, who returned Saturday after missing six games with an upper-body injury, said the Ducks are a different type of team than the Bruins.
"They play a different style so there's not too much of a carryover," Rielly said. "I think the most important thing is just a bounce back. I think we had a good thing going there for a while and I think it's important going in on Monday we make sure that we get back into the win column and we get back to playing the way that made us successful in the last couple."
The Ducks are 6-3-1 in their past 10 games despite going to Toronto having lost two games in a row.
"These are games that we needed," Ducks captain Ryan Getzlaf said after the loss Saturday. "Points that we need, especially on the road. We got a tough month here. All we can do is get ready for the next one."
"We can play good for one minute and then the next minute of the penalty, we can play bad," Ducks defenseman Hampus Lindholm said. "A four-man group out there, we got to work together and work that puck out. You can't just go in there and expect the puck to just fall on your stick and you can rim in out. You're going to have to battle the puck out sometimes too. A lot of these goals has been on us."
Getzlaf said, "No one's going to play 60 minutes throughout without (mistakes), but it's a matter of being able to maintain our structure when things go awry a little bit. (Saturday), we had a couple breakdowns that were not normal for our group as of lately. And our penalty kill got zipped."
The Maple Leafs are 14-8-2 at home and 5-3-2 in their past 10 games. The Ducks are 11-9-7 on the road.
