Maple Leafs have a more serious problem than just defensive lapses

The Toronto Maple Leafs are far from their best version. Craig Berube's team has three consecutive losses, and they keep repeating the same mistakes.

On Tuesday, they lost to the Boston Bruins, 5-3, in a game in which they committed early penalties and turnovers that led to a 4-1 deficit in just over 20 minutes.

A penalty from Max Domi in the comeback attempt made it easy for the Bruins to put the game away. Toronto repeated a pattern that includes giveaways, avoidable penalties and inconsistent execution, generating doubts about its ability to compete at the highest level.

Lack of accountability plagues Maple Leafs amid skid

Furthermore, it seems that the Maple Leafs have an accountability problem. Leaders' voices like Domi and John Tavares gave very general statements after the game against Boston, without assuming concrete failures in key moments.

"Despite the outcome, I think every guy in here battled in the third period, and that’s all you can really ask," Domi said.

"I thought we battled pretty hard, maybe just didn’t execute on some of our opportunities," Tavares said.

These attitudes are not up to the standard of the leaders. Without a culture of accountability, the same failures will continue.

If Toronto wants to stop committing bad discipline penalties, defensive errors and poor execution in moments of pressure, the players have to start owning their mistakes, recognizing costly decisions and commit to making changes.

The team's leaders must shoulder the losses publicly and in the locker room, and they will need to detail what adjustments they will make. This is to align themselves with a leadership group with internal metrics and tape review.