<p>All things considered, the Toronto Maple Leafs have mostly been doing things the right way in 2024-25. They&#8217;re first place in the Atlantic Division, sitting four points ahead of the Florida Panthers, and it&#8217;s the deepest into a season they&#8217;ve held the first-place seed aside from the 2021 North Division COVID year. That said, there&#8217;s always going to be the conversation about process versus results, and while the results have been mostly positive to this point, there have been some kinks in the process of late that seemed to come crashing down on them on Thursday night.</p>
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<p>It was arguably the worst game of the season for goaltender Joseph Woll, who allowed five goals on 33 shots in a rare off-night for him, and it was undoubtedly the worst game of the season for the top line of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Matthew Knies. It was a historically bad night for that trio, and that&#8217;s to be taken literally. The three players combined for a whopping minus-17 rating, which is the first time that number has been touched since 2003.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Maple Leafs Matthew Knies / Auston Matthews / Mitch Marner:</p>
<p>Are the first line with a combined -17 rating in an NHL game since Dany Heatley / Ilya Kovalchuk / Patrik Stefan (Thrashers) on January 2, 2003 vs the Senators</p>
<p>&mdash; Sportsnet Stats (@SNstats) <a href="https://twitter.com/SNstats/status/1877563016020947359?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2025</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>The last time a Leafs player was minus-6 in a game was back in 1991 when Mike Bullard and Daniel Marois held the honour following an outrageous 12-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. This almost makes the Marner/Matthews minus-6 more impressive considering the fact that the team as a whole only allowed six goals, meaning that having the top line on the ice was essentially a one-way ticket to a goal against. It wasn&#8217;t so much an effort-level thing as it was just a matter of not being on the same page. While we&#8217;re here, let&#8217;s add another element to the history made on Thursday night.</p>
<blockquote class="twitter-tweet" data-width="550" data-dnt="true">
<p lang="en" dir="ltr">Auston Matthews was minus-6 with a power play goal. The last five players to be minus-6 with a goal: <a href="https://t.co/U8aPDGgQAq">pic.twitter.com/U8aPDGgQAq</a></p>
<p>&mdash; Cory Lavalette (@corylav) <a href="https://twitter.com/corylav/status/1877564727078920700?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw">January 10, 2025</a></p></blockquote>
<p><script async src="https://platform.twitter.com/widgets.js" charset="utf-8"></script></p>
<p>&#8220;I thought they [the Hurricanes] made a good push and we had breakdowns in our own zone,&#8221; head coach Craig Berube told reporters postgame when asked what led to the loss. &#8220;I thought we left the slot open too much tonight, I thought we spent too much time in our zone in general. Especially in the second&#8230;we need to kill more plays and come up with more pucks, and we didn&#8217;t, kind of got away from us.&#8221;</p>
<p>It&#8217;s hard to give the top line too much flak considering they pretty much single-handedly sealed two points over their division rival Boston Bruins on Saturday night, but being on the ice for every single goal against in a game when the opponent scored six times on you is an impressive level of bad that shouldn&#8217;t be made into a habit.</p>
<p>Here are some other takeaways from the Maple Leafs&#8217; 6-3 loss to the Hurricanes.</p>
<ul>
<li>As alluded to at the top, it was a tough game for Joseph Woll, who&#8217;s otherwise been a rock between the pipes for the Leafs. It wasn&#8217;t so much that his play lost them the game, because again, when one line is on the ice for the entirety of your opponent&#8217;s goals, it&#8217;s not a loss earned by one guy. What actually happened was that Woll didn&#8217;t bail his team out like he and Anthony Stolarz have so many times. We&#8217;ve seen time and time again in 2024-25 games where the Leafs have allowed their goaltender to be peppered with shots late in the game or even just in random spurts throughout, and tonight was one of the nights when he didn&#8217;t stand on his head. The team will need to make some serious adjustments to account for Jake McCabe&#8217;s absence.</li>
<li>Adding on to that last point, over the past two games the Leafs have looked a lot like a team that&#8217;s missing one of their most reliable defencemen. The fanbase collectively held their breaths when McCabe gave Garnet Hathaway an extra shove on Sunday night and he ended up paying for it, hitting his head on the way down in his fight against the Flyers enforcer. He was placed on injured reserve (IR) retroactive to January 5 and the absence of one of their best defencemen showed through in the past two games. They were outshot 32-17 against the Flyers on Tuesday despite coming away with a 3-2 win, and against one of the actual top teams in the league in Carolina, the flaws shined through brighter than they did a couple of nights ago. It&#8217;s unknown how long McCabe will be sidelined, but general manager Brad Treliving can&#8217;t be thrilled with the results he&#8217;s seen so far if it is indeed a long-term absence.</li>
<li>Nick Robertson opened the scoring and has kicked his game up a couple of notches since his return to the lineup, presumably because the fact that his job might be at risk has started to become a reality. Robertson&#8217;s eight points in his last 11 games are great, but considering six of those points came in the first three games of this streak, he&#8217;s going to need to take his game up another notch to secure his job as we approach the trade deadline. The Leafs are reportedly aggressively pursuing a middle-six centre as their top need this year, and if they do indeed trade for one, it&#8217;s hard to imagine Robertson <a href="https://theleafsnation.com/news/how-maple-leafs-trade-aspirations-impact-max-domi-nick-robertson">surviving over the likes</a> of Max Domi or Bobby McMann for that third-line job.</li>
<li>Let&#8217;s end on a positive note, shall we? First, Matthew Knies busted his slump, and then William Nylander. The Swede had been without a goal since December 21 and pointless in his last four games, and if you give him three high-danger chances in the first eight minutes of the game, it&#8217;s more likely than not that he will hurt you. He had a couple of defensively suspect plays that will continue to need ironing out to get him back to his proper form, but it was good to see him securing so many high-danger chances for himself and amping up his efforts to get pucks on net.</li>
</ul>
<p>The Maple Leafs will be in action again on Saturday as they return home to host the Vancouver Canucks, staying at home for tilts against the Dallas Stars and New Jersey Devils before travelling to Montreal to face the Canadiens next Saturday.</p>
<p><strong>Sponsored by bet365</strong></p>
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All things considered, the Toronto Maple Leafs have mostly been doing things the right way in 2024-25. They're first place in the Atlantic Division, sitting four points ahead of the Florida Panthers, and it's the deepest into a season they've held the first-place seed aside from the 2021 North Division COVID year. That said, there's always going to be the conversation about process versus results, and while the results have been mostly positive to this point, there have been some kinks in the process of late that seemed to come crashing down on them on Thursday night.
<div class="bam-inline-promotion-block" data-max-length="2" data-placement-id="2106" data-context="web-content-promocard" data-property-id="324"></div>
It was arguably the worst game of the season for goaltender Joseph Woll, who allowed five goals on 33 shots in a rare off-night for him, and it was undoubtedly the worst game of the season for the top line of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and Matthew Knies. It was a historically bad night for that trio, and that's to be taken literally. The three players combined for a whopping minus-17 rating, which is the first time that number has been touched since 2003.

https://twitter.com/SNstats/status/1877563016020947359

The last time a Leafs player was minus-6 in a game was back in 1991 when Mike Bullard and Daniel Marois held the honour following an outrageous 12-1 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins. This almost makes the Marner/Matthews minus-6 more impressive considering the fact that the team as a whole only allowed six goals, meaning that having the top line on the ice was essentially a one-way ticket to a goal against. It wasn't so much an effort-level thing as it was just a matter of not being on the same page. While we're here, let's add another element to the history made on Thursday night.

https://twitter.com/corylav/status/1877564727078920700

"I thought they [the Hurricanes] made a good push and we had breakdowns in our own zone," head coach Craig Berube told reporters postgame when asked what led to the loss. "I thought we left the slot open too much tonight, I thought we spent too much time in our zone in general. Especially in the second...we need to kill more plays and come up with more pucks, and we didn't, kind of got away from us."

It's hard to give the top line too much flak considering they pretty much single-handedly sealed two points over their division rival Boston Bruins on Saturday night, but being on the ice for every single goal against in a game when the opponent scored six times on you is an impressive level of bad that shouldn't be made into a habit.

Here are some other takeaways from the Maple Leafs' 6-3 loss to the Hurricanes.
<ul>
 	<li>As alluded to at the top, it was a tough game for Joseph Woll, who's otherwise been a rock between the pipes for the Leafs. It wasn't so much that his play lost them the game, because again, when one line is on the ice for the entirety of your opponent's goals, it's not a loss earned by one guy. What actually happened was that Woll didn't bail his team out like he and Anthony Stolarz have so many times. We've seen time and time again in 2024-25 games where the Leafs have allowed their goaltender to be peppered with shots late in the game or even just in random spurts throughout, and tonight was one of the nights when he didn't stand on his head. The team will need to make some serious adjustments to account for Jake McCabe's absence.</li>
 	<li>Adding on to that last point, over the past two games the Leafs have looked a lot like a team that's missing one of their most reliable defencemen. The fanbase collectively held their breaths when McCabe gave Garnet Hathaway an extra shove on Sunday night and he ended up paying for it, hitting his head on the way down in his fight against the Flyers enforcer. He was placed on injured reserve (IR) retroactive to January 5 and the absence of one of their best defencemen showed through in the past two games. They were outshot 32-17 against the Flyers on Tuesday despite coming away with a 3-2 win, and against one of the actual top teams in the league in Carolina, the flaws shined through brighter than they did a couple of nights ago. It's unknown how long McCabe will be sidelined, but general manager Brad Treliving can't be thrilled with the results he's seen so far if it is indeed a long-term absence.</li>
 	<li>Nick Robertson opened the scoring and has kicked his game up a couple of notches since his return to the lineup, presumably because the fact that his job might be at risk has started to become a reality. Robertson's eight points in his last 11 games are great, but considering six of those points came in the first three games of this streak, he's going to need to take his game up another notch to secure his job as we approach the trade deadline. The Leafs are reportedly aggressively pursuing a middle-six centre as their top need this year, and if they do indeed trade for one, it's hard to imagine Robertson <a href="https://theleafsnation.com/news/how-maple-leafs-trade-aspirations-impact-max-domi-nick-robertson">surviving over the likes</a> of Max Domi or Bobby McMann for that third-line job.</li>
 	<li>Let's end on a positive note, shall we? First, Matthew Knies busted his slump, and then William Nylander. The Swede had been without a goal since December 21 and pointless in his last four games, and if you give him three high-danger chances in the first eight minutes of the game, it's more likely than not that he will hurt you. He had a couple of defensively suspect plays that will continue to need ironing out to get him back to his proper form, but it was good to see him securing so many high-danger chances for himself and amping up his efforts to get pucks on net.</li>
</ul>
The Maple Leafs will be in action again on Saturday as they return home to host the Vancouver Canucks, staying at home for tilts against the Dallas Stars and New Jersey Devils before travelling to Montreal to face the Canadiens next Saturday.

<strong>Sponsored by bet365</strong>
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