By all accounts, the Toronto Maple Leafs‘ Saturday night tilt against the Colorado Avalanche went exactly as expected. Lots of goals from both teams, lots of speed, and lots of intensity, with Colorado ultimately coming out victorious. The 7-4 final score was a tad inflated thanks to two empty-net goals, so the Leafs shouldn’t lose any sleep over that. What they should lose sleep over is the fact that they were up 4-2 halfway through the game and proceeded to allow five straight goals.

The biggest takeaway from that game is that the Maple Leafs severely miss Chris Tanev. And it’s not just about missing the player himself. When he returns, that will give the Leafs their best shutdown pair back, it will move Jake McCabe back onto his comfortable side, bump Oliver Ekman-Larsson down the depth chart, and hopefully spell the end of the Simon Benoit-Philippe Myers pairing.

The reality is, when you play a team that’s as deep as the Avalanche, you have very little room for error. They play with an absurd amount of speed and chemistry in the offensive zone, and the Leafs learned that the hard way. It also doesn’t help that goaltender Anthony Stolarz came back to earth a little bit, allowing at least three goals for the fourth game in a row. Both he and Joseph Woll deserve a little bit of grace considering neither had played more than 30 games in a single season before this year, but one can hope they’ll be able to adjust to the workload and continue giving their team a chance to win like they have for the majority of the season.

On the bright side, new acquisition Brandon Carlo had a successful Leafs debut. Although he was caught in the wrong place at the wrong time at the start of the game, finding himself on the ice for each of the Avalanche’s first two goals, he quickly rebounded and ended up leading the team in time-on-ice, skating for 22:04. He also made some pivotal plays on the penalty kill and blocked a whopping six shots. Scott Laughton, on the other hand, finished a minus-2 with just over 11 minutes of ice time, but it’s important to remember that these two players haven’t practiced with their teammates yet. Real “thrown into the fire” experience for both, and it happened to come against a top-5 team.

The Maple Leafs will be back in action on Monday night when they visit Utah to wrap up their road trip.