Several scouts watch Leafs lose fourth straight game

TORONTO - It was moments after the Toronto Maple Leafs lost 2-0 to the Nashville Predators that a fire alarm sounded inside Air Canada Centre.

For a team that might be preparing a fire sale, it was a foreboding omen.

The NHL trade deadline is less than two months away, but with the Leafs sitting well out of a playoff spot, teams have already begun to hover over the 11th-place club like hungry vultures preparing to pick apart its carcass.

Pro scouts from 15 different teams - including three from the Florida Panthers, two from the Chicago Blackhawks and one from the Vancouver Canucks - attended Tuesday night's game.

Most of them were there to see defenceman Tomas Kaberle, who announced last week that he would be willing to waive his no-trade clause. But with the Leafs on a four-game losing streak, few Toronto players may actually be in high demand.

Leafs general manager Brian Burke said Tuesday that he had received several trade offers since he took over on Nov. 29. So far, none have been worth pursuing.

After Tuesday night's game, the offers are not likely to improve.

"We haven't been able to find a way (to win) in the last few weeks," Leafs centre Matt Stajan said. "We just have to go back to basics. Hopefully, we can get a few early goals in our next game and get out of this."

In what was a goaltending duel between two Finnish netminders, neither the Leafs nor the Predators could find the net in the first two periods. At 5:33 of the final frame, Radek Bonk finally broke the scoreless tie with a power-play goal.

Nashville went up 2-0 less than eight minutes later on a goal from David Legwand as the Leafs wasted one of Vesa Toskala's better performances.

"I feel bad for him," Leafs forward Nik Antropov said of Toskala, who stopped 21 shots. "He was holding us there almost to the point where they scored the first goal. As I said, we just have to shoot the puck more."

The Leafs directed only 17 shots at Nashville goalie Pekka Rinne.

Toskala, who has been wildly inconsistent this season, may have been the only Toronto player who increased his trade value Tuesday night, stopping all 16 shots in the first two periods. Though most of Nashville's attempts appeared to come from the periphery, Toskala made a crucial save on a partial breakaway opportunity by J.P. Dumont.

The Predators were on a power play when slick-skating Steve Sullivan moved around a fallen Jamal Mayers, and stutter-stepped past Stajan before firing a wrist shot that Bonk deflected.

"It hit his pants," Toskala said of Bonk's goal, which was initially credited to Sullivan.

Toronto, meanwhile, could not solve Rinne.

The Predators goaltender, who headed into Tuesday night's game having won his previous two starts, recorded his fourth shutout of the season. Of course, he was not challenged much.

The Leafs' 17 shots marked their the lowest output of the season. In the third period, when the game was up for grabs, Toronto could muster only four.

"In the last five to 10 games, we have struggled with that," defenceman Pavel Kubina said of the Leafs, who have scored just nine goals in the last six games.

"We have to go back to how we played in the first 25 or 30 games of the season, where we outshot every team and pretty much were shooting over 35 shots every game . . . it doesn't have to be fancy."