Former Toronto Maple Leafs coach breaks down team's critical defensive errors leading to loss against Oilers

By Cole Shelton

Modified Jan 17, 2024 17:49 GMT

Former Toronto Maple Leafs assistant coach Andrew Brewer broke down what his former club was doing wrong defensively, which played a role in their losing streak.

Toronto is now on a four-game losing streak and has blown leads in all four games, as they led 3-1 over New York, 3-0 against Colorado, 2-1 against Detroit, and 2-0 against Edmonton.

In the losses, the Maple Leafs have made costly defensive errors and Brewer took to X to share his opinions on what has gone wrong.

In the post, Brewer says Pontus Holmberg overplayed Draisaitl returning to the corner and didn't check off coverage to Marner, which opened up a lane for Edmonton.

Along with that mistake, Auston Matthews lost his man, which forced Toronto to switch defenders on the fly. However, it left two defensemen on one side of the net and a goal scorer with time and space to get the goal. That goal ended up being the game-winner for Edmonton.

The errors have proven costly for Toronto, but after the game, Sheldon Keefe said he was happy with his team's effort:

"Once again, you don’t find a way to win when you have the lead. That burns, especially on a night like this where I thought our guys played a real good hockey game. They played real hard. Ultimately, when you are not scoring like we aren’t scoring in this little stretch, you have to find ways to win 2-1. That is hard to do, especially in this building against this team."

"To me, we played a great hockey game. In the first period, we could have had three or four," Keefe added. "They had their push, and I thought we managed that well through the first. We came out for the second period and had an abundance of scoring chances. We had three breakaways through the game and had nothing to show for those. I am very pleased with the effort of the group tonight. We have to find ways to close these games."

Despite Keefe being happy with the effort, the Maple Leafs have now lost four straight games and have a record of 21-13-8.

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Toronto Maple Leafs struggling

The Toronto-based franchise are holding onto a playoff spot by one point, as they are on a four-game losing streak. With a recent loss, they now have an overall record of 21-13-8.

Maple Leafs still have three more games on the road trip, namely against the Calgary Flames, Vancouver Canucks, and Seattle Kraken.

If Toronto doesn't stop making defensive errors as Andrew Brewer points out, they could be outside of a playoff spot in the very near future.