After winning four games in a row and coming into Wednesday night’s tilt against the Florida Panthers with a 7-1-0 record without Auston Matthews, the Maple Leafs were brought back to earth against a Florida team that looked much more like the one that won a Cup five months ago than the one teams had seen in the past few weeks.

Matthews isn’t the only player injured, far from it actually. Max Pacioretty, Max Domi, Matthew Knies, David Kampf, and now Bobby McMann are all battling injuries, resulting in four call-ups from the Toronto Marlies up front. On the positive side of things, Fraser Minten and Nikita Grebenkin have made the most of their opportunities since being recalled, and getting to see Alex Nylander skate alongside his older brother William has been a fun sub-story too. But despite a strong stretch of hockey, eventually, icing a forward group with almost as many AHL players as NHL will catch up to you. Mitch Marner made sure to clarify that when speaking to reporters after the loss to Florida.

It’s not just Wednesday night’s game Marner is referring to when he says that. The team as a whole has struggled to generate 5-on-5 offence despite their hot streak without Matthews, although they’ve found other ways to win. He may be the last player fans want to hear from when defending a bad game, but to his credit, he scored the lone goal for the Maple Leafs in the loss and he’s objectively been their best player in Matthews’ absence. And hearing him praise the players Minten and Grebenkin who have come up and helped them keep the winning streak alive has to be something that sits well with them and should give them some extra confidence in coming games.

Marner was also quick to brush off any suggestions that he was making excuses for their play, citing a need to be better on the forecheck and generating traffic in front of the net.

“Tonight, we got to be up the ice more. We got to be up in the forecheck more,” Marner told media via TSN’s Mark Masters. “We got to get around the net more, tip some more pucks for our D. They did a good job getting pucks through, we just weren’t there enough.”

Getting handled by the Panthers isn’t a new feeling for the Maple Leafs or their fans, but there’s something to be said about the situation the Leafs were in and the recognition that they’ve been overachieving a little bit considering all the adversity they’ve faced in the past few weeks. The alarm bells can probably be saved for the next time the teams face if this happens again, seeing that they won’t play the Panthers again until March 2025.