The Toronto Maple Leafs have started the season 2-1-0 with victories against the Montreal Canadiens and Minnesota Wild, with their lone defeat coming at the hands of the lowly Chicago Blackhawks, in front of the hometown crowd at Scotiabank Arena no-less.
As expected, the offense has been clicking with 5 goals on 42 shots in their season opener, 7 goals on 33 shots against Minnesota, and although they only scored once against Chicago, they fired 35 shots towards the net with 28 of them coming in the final 2 frames.
As things stand heading into their tilt against the Florida Panthers,
Morgan Rielly is with T.J. Brodie, Jake McCabe is now with
Timothy Liljegren, and Mark Giordano is with John Klingberg. Defense was never their strong suit but when a pairing has been that porous, changes have to be made as soon as possible.
With games against Florida, Tampa Bay, Washington, Dallas, Nashville, and Los Angeles on the docket to end the month of October, the Leafs are going to have to improve defensively if they want to maintain their position at the top of the Eastern Conference. The schedule doesn't get any easier in November either, so finding the right combinations on the back-end is going to be that much more important moving forward.