‘Our results suck’: Mistakes continuing to cost slumping Toronto Maple Leafs

TORONTO — The Maple Leafs had worked hard to get back on level terms.

Down 3-1 late in the second period Tuesday night, Easton Cowan snuck a shot through Avalanche goaltender Mackenzie Blackwood as a power play expired to cut the deficit in half.

Jack Roslovic then tied the game early in the third on a terrific individual effort.

The good vibes were short-lived.

Toronto was back trailing less than a minute later, undone once again by a series of egregious mistakes at an inopportune time, when Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog was left unmarked to bury his second goal of the game in what would end in a 6-3 victory for the visitors.

“We made multiple poor decisions — multiple — and it’s usually how hockey works,” said Maple Leafs head coach Jim Hiller, whose club has lost four straight in regulation and six of seven overall. “Sometimes you make a bad decision and hopefully somebody cleans it up. You can’t make one, two, three poor decisions in a row … and veteran players, you can’t have it.

“You just can’t have it, and that’s how you lose. It’s just plain and simple.”

Raddysh tried to get off the ice before the winner, but was stuck out for a 75-second shift before eventually losing Landeskog in front, while Toronto winger William Nylander was slow to react to his wide-open opponent.

“You’re gonna take your chances and try to make hockey plays,” said Raddysh, who scored his first goal for the Maple Leafs in the opening period. “I’d like to have that change back. I was just trying to make a read. I thought I could get off, but ultimately ends up in the back of the net.

“That ends up being the key.”

It was also a sequence of events Hiller, in his first season as Maple Leafs bench boss, as seen far too often for an injury-hit squad that sits 8-10-2 — good for second-last in the Atlantic Division through 20 games — after missing the playoffs for the first time in a decade last spring.

“Our results suck,” said Hiller, who was a Toronto assistant from 2015 through 2019. “You can write those stories, there’s no question, and we deserve that. But we’ve played some good hockey at times, and I thought (Tuesday) was another night where, for a large part of the game, we played some really good hockey.

“Didn’t win.”

Toronto goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky allowed five goals on 27 shots, marking the 12th time in 13 starts the two-time Stanley Cup and Vezina Trophy winner seen three or more pucks get past him in 2026-27 after signing a three-year, US$21-million contract in free agency.

“We have to put all the things — all the good things — together,” said the 38-year-old Bobrovsky, who is on a personal five-game losing streak and owns an ugly 3-8-2 record with an .881 save percentage and a 3.34 goals-against average. “When things are not going our way, just keep it simple … protect the middle and play a simple defensive game.”

Hiller was asked directly about how Bobrovsky, who also allowed four goals or more for the fifth time in blue and white this season, fits into the group’s current struggles.

“Been like the team,” he said. “We’ve had great moments and we’ve had not great moments. We just haven’t had enough great moments together, and we’ve had the inopportune moments at the same time.

“It’s across the board.”

Toronto’s crowded trainer’s room currently includes injured top-line winger Kirill Marchenko, veteran defenceman Morgan Rielly and depth centre Colton Sisson. The Maple Leafs have also had to do without forward John Tavares and shutdown blueliner Chris Tanev for long stretches.

“I don’t want to make excuses,” Hiller said. “Our record is what it is. It’s deserved. I think we could have a better record, but we don’t. We are what we are, and it’s a lot of different things.

“But I like the guys. I like the team. We’re going to come out of it. It just really, really sucks. And the only way out is stay together and work.”

DIFFERENCE OF OPINION

Tanev returned to the Toronto lineup after sitting out Sunday’s 4-0 loss to the New Jersey Devils on the second half of a back-to-back.

The 36-year-old was held out for load management purposes as the organization tries to manage a key piece that was limited to just 11 games last season — and has already missed nine in 2026-27 with an upper-body injury.

“I don’t agree with it, but understand where he’s coming from,” Tanev said of Maple Leafs general manager John Chayka’s plan following Tuesday’s morning skate. “Haven’t really been healthy for the last year, so I think he wants me to be able to play in January and February and March. I guess being available during that stretch will benefit the team.

“I do think John wants what’s best for me.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 11, 2026.

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press