Toronto Maple Leafs defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson cited poor puck management as a key factor in the team’s collapse in the third period against the Edmonton Oilers.
A nearly three-minute stretch of game split between the second and third period saw the Leafs lose control of the game in the blink of an eye with neutral zone turnovers, odd-man rushes against, and poor reads around the net. After being up 2-1 at one point, they allowed five unanswered to make it a 6-2 deficit before a Steven Lorentz goal in stoppage time made the final score a little more palpable.
“I don’t know, we were just not taking care of the puck,” Ekman-Larsson said to reporters after the game. “ Turning the puck over and obviously not playing hard enough in front of our net. That’s what happened in the last games in the third.”
The passive play in the third period of Saturday’s game was eerily similar to what transpired on Thursday against the San Jose Sharks, with the main difference being that the Leafs only allowed one goal that counted two nights prior. Instead of dictating the pace of play and putting the pressure on the opposition, they instead allowed the Oilers to put it in cruise control before the third period was two minutes old.
By the time Zach Hyman scored the sixth tally of the night, Dennis Hildeby was mercifully pulled from the contest in favour of Artur Akhtyamov. But in Ekman-Larsson’s eye, this loss does not fall on the shoulders of the towering goaltender.
“ Yeah, I think there was some goals that we probably want to do a better job in front of him for sure,” he said. “ We win as a team and lose as a team, so we need to start to get better.”
Ekman-Larsson says that it starts with working hard to own the puck and supporting one another in maintaining it. But at the end of the day, he feels that it boils down to execution, and things won’t improve until they make good on their chances when they do get the puck. They will have a few days to sit on the loss before they wrap up the home stand on Tuesday against the Chicago Blackhawks.
“ I think we take the bad and learn. Obviously, we did some good things in the first and second, I felt like as well,” he said. “ We gotta keep in mind that we’re doing some good stuff as well, but obviously that third period is not good enough. We gotta do something about that.”
PRESENTED BY OFF THE ROSTER
