The Toronto Maple Leafs’ struggles continued on Thursday night, falling 4-3 in overtime to the Los Angeles Kings. They are now on a four-game losing skid, but managed to escape the game with their first point over that stretch.

John Tavares scored two goals for the Maple Leafs, stepping up to try and bring this team back to life. Tavares gave his perspective on what he liked from the team’s efforts despite dropping another game.

“We kept battling and stuck together,” Tavares said post-game. “I think in the second and third, we’re defending too much, we’re on our heels. Saying that, I think we defended a lot better than we have been. It was a lot tighter. So at times we gotta execute a little better, but other than giving up more shots than we’d like to, I think it was harder to get to our net, harder to get cleaner looks.”

Toronto allowed 37 shots on net Thursday, only managing 15 itself. And while four goals against hardly comes across as a strong defensive effort, it’s also the fewest the team has conceded in a night through their losing skid. Of course, there’s still plenty work to do, and as a longtime member of the Leafs’ leadership team, Tavares recognizes that well.

“We know we haven’t been to the level that we expect on a consistent basis and we got to work our way through it,” he said. “Obviously, it’s been a battle for us and we gotta continue to stay with it and find our way here. Things are only getting tougher and tougher within our own division, within the league. We just got to stay at it and know we got a lot better in our game, a lot better individually. But the urgency has to be high.”

As the Leafs continue to drop games, it’s become unclear what exactly needs to be done to get back in the win column. For Tavares, it’s still just about doing the simple things right to tilt games in their favour.

“I still think we can win more pucks, we can be a little bit quicker with our pace, the way we move the puck up the ice, and how we’re on top of the opponent,” he said. “You know, at times there’s still a little bit too much separation. I still think there’s loose pucks that we can be on top of and earn.”

Toronto resumes its schedule Saturday on the road against the Chicago Blackhawks.

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