Matthews says Maple Leafs quit in loss to Lightning

TORONTO -- Auston Matthews said the Toronto Maple Leafs gave up.

Matthews felt he and his teammates played out the string in the latter stages of a 6-2 loss to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday, a malaise that the Maple Leafs must immediately nip in the bud.
"The effort kind of just wasn't there at times," the center said. "I mean, I think in the third period we pretty much just quit. That's on us as players. We've got to wake up and do a much better job and hold each other accountable."
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Matthews, in a way, did exactly that by candidly expressing his disappointment in Toronto's lack of pushback. Any time a marquee player uses the word quit to describe his team's play, alarm bells sound throughout the dressing room.
In Matthews' opinion, they should be ringing. And he and his teammates had better be listening.
"This is a good wake-up call for us," Matthews said. "It was a measuring-stick game. That's the best team in the League, and we didn't come ready to play, and they pretty much just slapped us."

It's not like the Maple Leafs (42-22-5) are going to catch the Lightning (53-13-4) in the standings. Toronto is third in the Atlantic Division, four points behind the second-place Boston Bruins and 21 behind Tampa Bay.
But with the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs set to start in less than a month, the Maple Leafs came into the game hoping their game against the Lightning at Scotiabank Arena would prove to be a litmus test going forward.
It was. And the four-goal loss, matching their largest margin of defeat at home this season, was cause for concern.
"We were no good," coach Mike Babcock said. "They were better than us from start to finish, won more battles, more races, and just had more jump. We looked like a lethargic group right from the get-go. We didn't have any energy right through our whole group. Didn't skate well. Didn't execute well. Weren't good."
It was the mental mistakes that were the most perturbing, especially a glaring one late in the second period.
With the Maple Leafs on the power play and trailing 4-1, a sloppy line change resulted in defenseman Morgan Rielly being left all alone against three Tampa Bay players deep in the Toronto zone. Cedric Paquette scored the shorthanded goal to put the Lightning up by four.
The Maple Leafs looked confused and chaotic on the play, eliciting a chorus of deafening boos from the capacity crowd of 19,491 as they skated off the ice for the second intermission.
By the time the final horn sounded, 14 of the 18 Maple Leafs skaters were minus-1 or worse.
"We just didn't have a very good power play, and I know, personally, I probably shouldn't have changed when I changed," Toronto center John Tavares said of the play leading to Paquette's shorthanded goal. "Obviously, really unacceptable at that stage …"
Tavares didn't want to hear any mention of the fact that the Maple Leafs were coming off a three-game road trip through Western Canada and may have been fatigued.
"No excuses," he said. "We have to look ourselves in the mirror and look to bounce back and understand we have to be a lot better than we were today."
Especially against the Bruins and Lightning. Toronto is 2-5-0 against Boston and Tampa Bay this season and has been outscored 28-17.
Here's the dilemma for Babcock and his team: It appears they are headed for an Eastern Conference First Round series against the Bruins. Should they survive that, the Lightning, the top team in the NHL, could very well be their opponent in the second round.
That certainly paints an ominous future for the Maple Leafs, given their moribund performance Monday.