Maple Leafs’ record-tying skid ramps up pressure on Horachek
But interim head coach sticking with his system as team searches for a win
One of the hardest things for Maple Leafs coach Peter Horachek to hear right now is talk he shouldn’t be the Leafs’ coach at all.
With his club 1-11 since he took over the coaching reins, Leafs Nation is rife with talk that maybe it wasn’t so bad under former coach Randy Carlyle after all.
Horachek’s mantra is to keep pressing forward with the process, but he’s not idling and hoping for a break from critics in the form of a win.
Horachek is likely more frustrated than any of his players or fans; this is a coach who spent nine years as an assistant in a solid Nashville Predators program, took over a hopeless situation on an interim basis in Florida last year, then progressed to an equally untenable situation in Toronto as interim coach. For the moment, Horachek remains stoic for public consumption, but is pressing his players harder and harder behind the scenes.
For instance, he will not be referring to his forward lines as a first line, or second, or third. With his team in the midst of a franchise-record 10game losing streak, the coach is defining those lines in another way.
“I’m not going to call them second, third, fourth lines anymore,” Horachek said Wednesday as the Leafs had the day off after a 4-3 loss in Nashville Tuesday night.
“It’s going to be how they’re playing. Both (Richard) Panik and (David) Booth, you saw them (with Nazem Kadri), as the fourth line but pretty much they were our best the whole-night.” The only thing Horachek can control is the attention he pays to detail. That was underlined in how he distributed ice time to his forwards in Nashville.
There are precious few alternatives to using the stagnant line of Tyler Bozak, Phil Kessel and James van Riemsdyk on the power play. Kadri is also a part of the power play equation, but the 24 year old, who has had the door open to take over the club’s top centre status from Bozak, turned the puck over on a first-period power play in Nashville — another glaring example of why the Leafs are losing.
Kadri was dropped to what was formerly known as the fourth line and responded with a goal and a team leading 19:01 minutes among forwards. That drop came after the first period, but not before a thorough blasting from the coach during the first intermission.
The cards, the way they’re laying for Horachek right now, are being dealt from the bottom of the deck. His “best” players during the slide have been so-called bottom six forwards Daniel Winnik and Mike Santorelli.
Horachek finds himself in a second consecutive tough spot as he tries to prove his head coaching credentials.
Still, the message is the same — stick with the process. But Horachek, like his players, is also battling for the future. The Leafs are expected to be in the midst of massive changes in the coming months.
In the meantime, Toronto has been away from home ice and Leafs Nation for over a week, but that changes this weekend when the team hosts the Edmonton Oilers on Saturday.
It will be interesting to see how many more Connor McDavid Leaf sweaters show up in the crowd Saturday. A pair of those sweaters surfaced last week, which reflects fans’ realization the season is all but lost, save for a bottom-five finish, which increases the Leafs’ odds of landing McDavid, the consensus once-in-generation No. 1 pick.
That’s Horachek’s lot in coaching life now, but he isn’t asking for a break.
“We’re trying to get this ship right, we appreciate our fans and their support . . . they’re as frustrated as we are,” Horachek said.
“I don’t think I’m shocked or surprised (at the losing streak), but I don’t think I’ve seen anything like it before. But no one is feeling sorry for us and you can’t feel sorry for yourself, there’s no success rate in that.”