The Toronto Maple Leafs’ second game against the Boston Bruins followed a very similar script to the first one and hurt the Leafs in multiple ways – both on the scoresheet and the injury report.

Anthony Stolarz allowed three goals on ten shots and didn’t return to the game for the second period, which was eventually revealed to be injury related. And he wasn’t the only player to go down – Auston Matthews also left the game after taking a hit to the numbers from Bruins defenceman, who has become a quick villain to the Maple Leafs after injuring Scott Laughton on Saturday night.

The Leafs aren’t playing good hockey right now, and when you combine that with Stolarz’s early struggles, it’s a nasty combination that’s led to what feels like a minimum of four goals against per game. The fact that they’re first in the league in goals-for-per-game at 5-on-5 hasn’t been enough to counteract the poor play on defence in their own zone or in net, and that says a lot about how much the Leafs have struggled in that area.

While they attempted to make it interesting down the stretch, eventually scoring a power play goal and then a quick goal in the third period to make it 4-3, Zadorov got into their heads and it worked for the Bruins. Max Domi cross-checked Zadorov in front of the Bruins net several times and proceeded to drop the gloves despite being the only willing party, which was clearly retribution for him injuring Matthews early on, but the Bruins scored on the ensuing power play and essentially iced the game from there.

The Leafs might not be a middle-of-the-pack team on paper, but the longer they keep cheating on the defensive side of the puck and the longer they keep getting amateur play from their starting goaltender, the more their place in the standings will become a reality. The October blues have historically been forgiven due to the Leafs’ past ability to turn the jets on in November and become a winning team again, but there hasn’t been any indication that they’re headed in that direction this season.

The Maple Leafs will look to get back into the win column on Thursday when they host the Los Angeles Kings.