The Toronto Maple Leafs have been struggling to generate much positive momentum at all lately, having lost five of their past six games with the latest coming in the form of a 5-1 loss to the Dallas Stars.

Despite the Maple Leafs’ effort looking like one of their best over the past few weeks, they couldn’t solve Stars netminder Jake Oettinger and got burned by shots through traffic. It wasn’t a great game for Dennis Hildeby on the stat sheet, but it wasn’t a game he lost them single-handedly.

Head coach Craig Berube commented on how the effort and process he saw from his team on Sunday was better than he’s seen in recent games, despite the two points going the opposite way yet again.

“We played well,” Berube said. “Through two periods, I really liked our game. Lots of chances and opportunities. It is not going in right now. Eventually, it wears on you throughout the game, right?”

Berube expanded on that point, suggesting that the team’s puck play has improved and commended his team for generating chances, and even gave the team’s defending a nod despite five goals allowed.

“Our puck play is a lot better,” Berube continued. “There are opportunities from just making more plays. There is more confidence in our game. Again, we need to finish, right? One goal is not going to cut it most nights. But I thought we defended extremely well tonight. That is a good team over there. We all know that. And we didn’t give up much.”

The Leafs appeared to be out of answers when pressed for why the team is having so much trouble generating anything, all referring to the game plan – grind through it and take the lucky bounces when they can get them. Berube echoed this sentiment.

“It is all frustrating. It is. The guys feel it. Everybody feels it. We have to stick with it. If we get some bounces here, it can turn and go the other way.”

The Maple Leafs will face off against the Pittsburgh Penguins for the third and final meeting between the two teams this season with a Tuesday matinee at 4 pm eastern time.