Tavares believes Leafs need to work on game management after ‘sloppy’ loss to Devils

The Toronto Maple Leafs are back on a skid after losing 5-2 to the New Jersey Devils on Tuesday night. After falling in overtime to the Seattle Kraken on Saturday, the Leafs have now suffered back-to-back losses twice through seven games, with a 3-3-1 record to start the year.

John Tavares scored one of Toronto’s two goals in the loss. Speaking to media after the game, the veteran forward gave his perspective on what went wrong for the Leafs.

“A little too sloppy,” Tavares said. “First period, did some good things. Second period, I think we were a little sluggish to start, but we started to respond and carry play. We just have to be smarter with the puck and the way we’re managing the game. A team like that with the way they can skate and how quick they are in transition, it obviously really hurt us, and we were chasing it from there.”

A little sluggish is one way to put it. The Devils took over the game early in the second with three goals through the first five minutes of the period. Showing up in the middle frame has now become a consistent issue for the Leafs this season, and Tavares shared what he thinks the team needs to take from their performance in the second on Tuesday.

“I don’t think we’re managing the game the way that we need to,” Tavares said. “We need to invest shift after shift, wear opponents down. We talk about checking and grinding and the things that we want to make part of our identity and that we do well. To build on some of those things that we brought into our game last year. We haven’t gone to that consistently enough.”

Another place the Leafs have been hurt this year is on odd-man rushes, of which they handed the Devils plenty on Tuesday. For Tavares, it comes down to that same issue of game management, one of the main areas in which he believes the Leafs need to improve.

“(We need to have) the awareness, the time and place, and the ability just to make a play,” Tavares said. “I think the intentions are there, but in the execution, we have to be better. It starts with myself, but we all have to understand the importance of that situation and other areas of our game we have to be consistent with.”

Tavares and the Maple Leafs face off against the struggling Buffalo Sabres in a back-to-back on Friday and Saturday. It’ll be a test for the team to show they can learn from these losses instead of continuing to make the same mistakes.