Jim Hiller didn’t have much interest in dressing up a 3-2 loss to Ottawa. The Leafs scored twice for the third straight game, but that wasn’t enough to cover the missed chances, the late breakdowns, and a power play that came up empty when it mattered most.
After the game, Hiller pointed first to the opportunities his team left on the table.
“Well, I think we needed to finish some of the chances we had. We had enough chances to win the game, no question.”
He also said the third period turned on a couple of costly penalties.
“There were some careless penalties. The two penalties in the third period really hurt us.
It took our momentum away a little bit and gave them some life. They pushed hard.”
Asked about Kirill Marchenko’s high-sticking penalty, Hiller said he hadn’t studied it closely, but accepted the call.
“I haven’t looked at it that closely, but it is a stick battle, and his stick comes up. It is a penalty.
That’s just the way it works. Got to keep our stick down.”
The power play produced one bright spot, but Hiller said the group didn’t deliver in the game’s biggest moment.
“Well, a great goal. Really well done.
Great execution. But we needed it to come up big at the end.
That’s the one that we all leave the building with, right? We just weren’t dangerous.”
He added that there were good stretches, but the final chance was the one that lingered.
“I think there were some really good moments, but if you evaluate the very last one, when we really needed something to happen, we were disappointed in that one.”
When asked why the group couldn’t execute in that situation, Hiller credited Ottawa and said his team simply didn’t finish the sequence.
“I don’t know. It’s a good question.
Give them credit. They did a good job.
We just did not execute. We had early puck possession in their zone, and we turned it over.
Then we had a hard time getting back in.”
The late push never really materialized, and Hiller said fatigue was part of the issue as the Senators made life difficult in the final minutes.
“Just when they had us running around just a little bit? Yeah.
Probably, we had some tired guys at that point, too, and we were looking to push. I probably could’ve had some fresher guys out there.”
“If you are talking about just specifically the last few minutes there, when we were trying to get out, that would’ve been it. More than anything, probably just a little tired.”
Hiller also offered a positive read on the Tavares line, even if the results weren’t there.
“Yeah. I thought they started really well.
I thought they started really well. You’d like them to get a little bit more again, but there were some flashes there, for sure.
Some good looks.”
He singled out Gavin, Willy, and John for the chances they created, but said the puck just wasn’t going in.
“In the first period, I thought Gavin was really skating. I thought Willy skated pretty well all night, and John had some looks. Just not going in here for that crew right now.”
And when the conversation turned to the posts and crossbars that kept the Leafs from breaking through, Hiller didn’t hide from the frustration.
“Yeah. Oh, yeah.
I don’t love making excuses, but somebody said we had six or seven posts or crossbars. I don’t know what they were.
Lots of iron. Those are good chances, typically.
So, yeah.”
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