came out and laid an absolute egg against the lowly Ottawa Senators on Tueaday evening, there's just no two ways about it.
After connecting a trio of wins together, the Leafs played host to the Sens on Tuesday with a chance to make it 4 straight wins. However, a very uninspired, lazy effort against a Senators team who came to play resulted in a 3-0 loss in front of a capacity crowd at Scotiabank Arena.
Leafs bench boss Craig Berube was not pleased with his team's effort on Tuesday, with cameras catching the team's coach chewing them out on the bench during the game -- something William Nylander admitted that he thought was great, as the team needed a bit of a wake-up call.
After the loss, former Leafs captain John Tavares was about as enthused as Berube was. He did not mince words when assessing his team's performance.
Tavares hit the nail on the head. Every team loses games, but when a team loses in such embarrassing fashion, and on home ice, the criticism is deserved.
The Leafs may be missing Auston Matthews and Max Pacioretty, but they had shown the ability to overcome that adversity and pull off the win in the previous 3 contests. There's really no reason why they couldn't at least make last night's game a competitive one. I'd imagine we'll see a much better effort tonight in Washington.