Why do the Leafs lose to undermanned lineups?

The Toronto Maple Leafs have a bad habit of losing to weakened opponents, most recently to a Montreal Canadiens lineup featuring multiple AHL call-ups and the rebuilding Arizona Coyotes.

Video Transcript

OMAR: Hey, everyone. Welcome back to another episode of "In the Mentions." I'm Tic-Tac-Omar. And I have a question. And don't worry. It's not the whole how does this affect the Leafs. My question is one word in three letters, why. Why do the Leafs continue to lose games like this?

If you don't know what I'm talking about, raise your hand if there's been a time where the Leafs have gone into a city or in a game, whatever, you see the other roster, and the other roster literally looks like a, like, September 7 preseason roster. And the first thought is oh, the Leafs are going to lose, 100%, the Leafs are going to lose.

They always lose these games. And I don't understand why. It's like the opponent in Pokemon, they send out a Level 6 Pidgey. And then the Leafs send out at a Level 100 Charizard. And they lose the game.

And there are a whole bunch of reasons why. The goalie that they're facing decides to morph into Dominic Hasek for some reason. Against the Habs, it's Sam Montainebleau making save after save. The Arizona Coyotes always lose. Vejmelka, the goalie there, is 3-0 against the Leafs, 3-0 in his career. He has never lost a game against the Leafs, three games played, three wins. We can't blame that.

Some people will say officiating. Oh, the refs have been bad. The refs have been bad all year for everyone not just the Leafs. The recent game against Montreal, it wasn't like they were outplayed overall. They made a lot of mistakes and stuff.

But at the same time, it's like, why do the Leafs keep losing these games? I don't know. Is it because Boston's too far ahead in the standings so it's like, eh, whatever? But no, they had the lead. They played well. It's just other team just ends up playing more. They just want it more.

And I don't-- I don't get it. I don't know. I don't know. Maybe it's the whole skill versus will thing. But I find that every time the Leafs go into these games, there's like a 99% chance they're going to lose and then 100% chance the headline is going to say, oh, the Leafs have been humbled. I guarantee you that's the headline right now.

I don't know. I don't know, man. I don't know. There were moments where I try to-- I try to say, hey, maybe the Leafs are different this year. And I'm not going to-- I'm not going to say the season's over because of one loss. However, it's getting really, really, really, really irritating when the Leafs are playing against a team that has no business winning, and they lose to that team. I don't know. Maybe after the All-Star break things'll change.