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LOS ANGELES — Hockey historians will have to go back to the final days of the Harold Ballard regime to find a Toronto Maple Leafs team that played with as little resolve as this season's edition.
Last night, faced with a chance to redeem themselves after a humiliating loss to the defending Stanley Cup champions the previous night, the Maple Leafs meekly rolled over and submitted to the last-place team in the NHL.
They let the Los Angeles Kings have an easy night, as the hosts rolled around and over the Leafs for a 5-2 win. The Leafs can say they fired 50 shots at Kings goaltender Jason LaBarbera but that is a misleading statistic. They did not commence firing in earnest until the Kings had a 5-0 lead early in the second period. It was the Leafs' fourth loss in succession. In their last 12 games, the Leafs have exactly two wins.
Leafs head coach Paul Maurice refused to say his players quit, citing the last two periods when they took 44 shots. It was a mantra the players seized upon as well, although it was meaningless.
Lubomir Visnovsky, left, of the Los Angeles Kings celebrates the goal of Alexander Frolov for a 4-0 lead. (Harry How/Getty Images)
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- Anaheim Ducks
- Los Angeles Kings
- San Jose Sharks
- Toronto Maple Leafs
- Nik Antropov
- Rob Blake
- Dustin Brown
- Kyle Calder
- Alexander Frolov
- Michal Handzus
- Pavel Kubina
- Jason LaBarbera
- Andrew Raycroft
- Vesa Toskala
- Andy Wozniewski
"If they had quit, you would have seen three periods like the first," Maurice said.
The question now is whether there is a reason the players seem to be standing around waiting for someone to be fired, as the players on those terrible Leaf teams of the late 1980s and early 1990s used to do so often.
Two of the people responsible for those decisions got a close look at the cesspool of despair this team has become, as Leafs general manager John Ferguson and Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment president Richard Peddie are on this California death march.
Peddie is already on record as saying his decision to hire Ferguson as a 36-year-old rookie general manager in 2003 was a mistake. He kept a low profile around the Staples Center last night and it could not be discovered if he was ready to deviate from the company line that Ferguson, head coach Paul Maurice and everyone else will be evaluated at the end of the season.
The way the Leafs are playing, the figurative end of their season is almost at hand. In the short term, Ferguson could fire Maurice, who cannot get his players to perform. But he, too, was not talking after the game, although he spent a lot of time around the Leaf dressing room engaged in a long conversation on his cellphone before telling the media he would have nothing to say.
Even if he is contemplating firing Maurice, Ferguson is in a difficult position. He would have to clear that move with Peddie and the MLSE board of directors. Since it is clear the board will dump Ferguson if the Leafs miss the playoffs, the directors may tell the GM there is no sense firing the coach because there will be an entire house-cleaning come spring.
This may not seem possible, but the Leafs were even worse in the first period against the Kings than they were the previous evening in losing 5-0 to the Anaheim Ducks. By the end of the period, the worst team in the league (at least until last night's game) had shredded the Leafs' defence and built a 4-0 lead.
This is not to say the Kings somehow fired themselves up and played like a playoff team. It is to say the Leafs were completely without even a semblance of pride, desire or anything else that goes into being professional athletes.
"We've got to do better than this," Leafs centre Matt Stajan said. "It's unacceptable. We've got to stay together, take care of our dressing room."
However, the few players who showed up for the post-game interviews were not willing to say they all quit early in the game.
"Even though we were down a lot of goals we showed a lot of character in battling back," said Leafs captain Mats Sundin, who does not often stretch the bounds of credulity. He went on to say the team has not given up on making the playoffs.
"If anyone gave up with half a season left there would be a real problem," Sundin said. "Obviously there's a sense of urgency. But if we play the way we did for the last two periods, we can make the playoffs."
While Leaf goaltender Andrew Raycroft was bad in his own right, the Leaf defence was equally inept. None of the numerous rebounds Raycroft coughed up were cleared and often no one was around to tie up Kings forwards in front of the net. But the last two goals he gave up were quite soft, so Maurice replaced him with Vesa Toskala to start the second period.
"I was definitely looking for a hole to crawl into," Raycroft said. "I didn't play well, there were no [favourable] bounces and that's what happens."
Dustin Brown had two goals for the Kings in the first period, with Alexander Frolov and Kyle Calder getting the others.
Toskala, whose much-anticipated return tomorrow night to the home of his former team, the San Jose Sharks, must seem like a date with the executioner, played a decent game. He gave up one goal, to Rob Blake, on 13 shots.
The Leafs finally scored a goal when Nik Antropov connected on a power play late in the second period. It was his first goal since Dec. 10, a 12-game drought. Darcy Tucker scored the other Leaf goal.
