TORONTO - Two nights after going on the road to upset the defending Stanley Cup champions, the Toronto Maple Leafs returned to Air Canada Centre on Saturday for a not-so-welcome homecoming.
In what was described as a learning experience, the Leafs were defeated 6-1 in a one-sided battle against the Montreal Canadiens.
"That's a real polished team over there," said goaltender Curtis Joseph, who replaced Vesa Toskala to start the third period. "If you're a little off, they're going to expose you. And (Saturday night) we were a little bit off. But you've got to learn from those mistakes."
The Leafs will be hard-pressed to avoid similar results this season. In order to defeat the Red Wings 3-2 on Thursday, Toronto needed a blue-collar effort from all 18 skaters, a Vezina-type performance from Toskala and a poor showing from its opponent.
Over an 82-game schedule, that may be too much to ask for on a nightly basis.
"I think this was important for us to see how hard we have to work night in and night out . . . in order to play with teams like Detroit and Montreal," said Leafs forward Alex Steen. "I don't know what to say. We have to get back to how we played the other night."
Though Toronto exhibited growing pains, Montreal looked every bit like a Stanley Cup contenders.
Fresh off a 2-1 shootout loss to the Buffalo Sabres on Friday, the Canadiens showed why many believe they will once again finish first in the Eastern Conference. The team has the personnel to be the most dangerous teams in the league. And when they are firing on all cylinders, no one - not even Toskala, who allowed six goals on 23 shots - has a chance of stopping them.
Off-season acquisition Alex Tanguay put on an offensive show with four points, Sergei Kostitsyn chipped in with two goals and an assist, and goaltender Jaroslav Halak stopped 24-of-25 shots.
If there was a silver lining for the Leafs, it was that they committed more than enough mistakes for the young and developing team to learn from.
No one is expecting Toronto to qualify for the playoffs. With Mats Sundin gone and eight players aged 25 or younger in the lineup, the team is short on talent and experience. Still, there is no excuse for how the Leafs played on Saturday.
"It wasn't our young players (Saturday night) who laid an egg," said head coach Ron Wilson. "It was some of our veteran guys, who will probably want to say it was our young guys who didn't get the job done. Some people need to step up in a situation like that and lead. And I thought (Mikhail) Grabovski and (18-year-old rookie) Luke Schenn were two of our better people on the ice."
The Leafs may have been the better team to start the game, but Toronto, which received its lone goal from Jason Blake, failed to capitalize on its scoring chances.
Once the Canadiens started scoring, they never looked back.
Alex Kovalev spun around a stationary Jonas Frongren and scored a highlight-reel goal to put Montreal up 2-0 at 12:39 in the first period. The Canadiens then rattled off four power-play goals in the middle frame to take a commanding 6-1 lead.
"You never want to see nights like (Saturday night)," said Leafs defenceman Pavel Kubina, who vowed his team would be better at home against the St. Louis Blues on Monday.
"We can't start panicking. We're not going to lead every game. And the second goal that they scored against us, we started panicking and took stupid penalties and made lots of mistakes in our zone."
When the third period began, the Leafs saved Toskala from further humiliation by replacing him with Joseph.
The veteran goaltender stopped all 11 shots that he faced, not that it mattered much. By then, the game had already been decided.
"I don't think Vesa was very sharp," said Wilson, who added that Toskala would start Monday's game. "He was back and deep in his net and got tentative like the rest of our team. It was a good opportunity to get Cujo's feet wet."
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