If I had a nickel for every time William Nylander missed a wide open net only for the opponent to turn around and score a back-breaking goal moments later, I would have two nickels. Which isn’t a lot, but it’s weird that it happened twice, in the same weekend no less.

Sunday’s script was similar to Saturday’s, which is going to leave head coach Craig Berube with a sour taste in his mouth. The Toronto Maple Leafs were hurt by poor goaltending on Saturday against the Boston Bruins but didn’t do themselves any favours either. On Sunday, they took control of the game before letting the Carolina Hurricanes outclass them in every possible category in what was ultimately a 5-4 loss.

The Maple Leafs were outshot 19-2 in the second period, which is embarrassing considering how tight things were. Despite entering the period with a 4-3 lead, the Hurricanes scored a power play goal off the stick of Taylor Hall, who hadn’t scored in his last 13 games. Nylander came as close as one can to scoring the go-ahead goal, and as I alluded to in the first sentence of this article, he somehow found a way to miss a wide open cage in a different fashion than the post-crossbar-out he executed on Saturday.

With roughly seven minutes left in the period, Jake McCabe fumbled a breakout pass at his own blueline and turned it over to the Hurricanes, who parlayed it into an odd-man rush and found the back of the net to end the game.

If you’ve been reading my content this year, you I’ve been hammering home the narrative that the Leafs simply struggled through October like they always do before turning it on in November. The November Leafs looked like they arrived, winning the first three games of the month, but the efforts this weekend may have single-handedly undone any credit they created for themselves. Berube is going to be rightfully furious about this outcome and the Leafs will look to channel that into a revenge win against the Bruins on Tuesday, but it’s not going to come easy if they keep playing like this.

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