SIMMONS: Six-game home stand could wind up burying Maple Leafs

The reality of gaining momentum in a tight Atlantic Division is all the more challenging.

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For all there was to feel good about — the goaltending of Sergei Bobrovsky, the two goals scored by Jack Roslovic, both of them set up by Auston Matthews, the way the Maple Leafs bounced back in the third period of what looked like a one-sided defeat — there is a certain numbness that accompanies just where the Maple Leafs find themselves in the Atlantic Division standings.

The Leafs have played the most games in the division and have almost the least amount of points.

On a points per game basis, they are tied for last in the division with the forever-troubled Detroit Red Wings.

And nearing the quarter-mark of this regular season, playing in a division where a maximum five teams can qualify for the Stanley Cup playoffs, the Leafs are on pace for an 89-point season.

And this is precisely where they find themselves after a 3-2 loss to the Utah Mammoth at Scotiabank Arena to begin a most difficult home stand. The Leafs play Montreal on Saturday night and after that they play Connor Hellebuyck and the New Jersey Devils, then Nathan MacKinnon and Colorado, then Quinn Hughes and Minnesota, then Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl and friends from the Edmonton Oilers.

For those keeping track of such matters, the Leafs will be playing the first, second and fourth place teams in the Western Conference and the third-place team in the Atlantic Division over the next two weeks.

And they also play the undefeated Connor Hellebuyck, now tending goal for Sheldon Keefe’s New Jersey Devils.

That’s a lot to be concerned about in a six-game pack after opening the home stand Tuesday night with a 3-2 loss to the Utah Mammoth.

A lot of numbers not going in the Leafs’ direction.

As of Tuesday morning in the Atlantic Division, the Boston Bruins are on pace for 120 points. Tampa Bay, even with the the Nikita Kucherov saga making headlines, is also at a 120-point pace. Then you have the Canadiens at a 117-point pace. The rather hot Buffalo Sabres are on a 102-point pace, and they are just two ahead of the Florida Panthers. And the Ottawa Senators, searching for goaltending, are on pace for 99 points.

That’s 10 more than the Leafs or the Red Wings over the course of an entire season.

Sometimes what you see and what you think and what you hope to believe in gets defeated by the pure numbers of wins and losses. General manager John Chayka didn’t sign Bobrovsky for all that money or sign the surprisingly stunning Roslovic, didn’t trade for Kirill Marchenko, didn’t hire Jim Hiller and a new coaching staff, to be part of a rebuild.

He was hired to win. They were hired to win. Keith Pelley was told the Leafs could win.

The reality of gaining momentum in a tight Atlantic Division is all the more challenging.

A very busy Chayka altered almost half his roster so that last season’s lousy Leafs team would become a distant memory. It’s not that this year is playoffs or bust for the Leafs, but that seems to be the thought process from the inside.

For the first nine years of Matthews and William Nylander and president Brendan Shanahan, back when Mitch Marner was still around here, there was a playoff beginning every April. It was almost a foregone conclusion. There wasn’t much of a playoff run, maybe, after that, but there was a certain accomplishment in getting to the post-season.

Last year, president Shanahan was fired before the season, general manager Brad Treliving was fired during the season, coach Craig Berube was fired after the season. This is a new Leafs era with some old Leafs names.

Matthews might be playing the best hockey of his life. He never has been the playmaker he has grown into this season. And still not enough wins.

The Leafs had no legs after a West Coast road trip — that prototypical first game at home syndrome — but they did find themselves in the third period. They got a rare great night from Bobrovsky. They came back from trailing twice to tie the game. Were it not for a foolish late penalty by Darren Raddysh — who has been the Leafs’ best defenceman this season — the Leafs would have gone to overtime battling for an extra point.

Instead they got no points.

And while it is so very early in the season — and isn’t there a more familiar Toronto sporting refrain than that? — there is reason to doubt the Leafs can be a playoff team.

They have more than enough offence, when healthy, with Matthews, Roslovic, the injured pair of Kirill Marchenko and John Tavares, the youngsters Easton Cowan and the kid, Gavin McKenna. The goaltending has been decent when Anthony Stolarz has played, and on Tuesday it was more than decent with Bobrovsky in goal.

But boy, do they have trouble when teams challenge with speed, when teams widen out their offence, when teams go hard to the net the way Utah did on Tuesday, that they don’t have an answer yet to challenge those who attack the way the Mammoth attacked.

It is not impossible that by mid-November, when everybody has played 23 games, that the Bruins will have 31 points and maybe Montreal will have the same. It’s possible that Tampa Bay will have 30 points and Buffalo and Ottawa could have 27 and Florida right around the numbers.

If the Leafs win one of their next five games, they will have just 20 points.

If they win two, they will have 22 points.

That will be good enough for seventh or eighth in an eight-team division.

And that won’t be good enough as this home stand of crisis proportions continues on.

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