We’ll get a couple things out of the way off the top.

The Washington Capitals are the fourth best team in the league right now. They won the Presidents’ Trophy last year. They’ve got some dynamic offensive talents, a great goalie and are the fourth best possession team in the NHL.

That’s a good team, and their win on Tuesday was both at home and in overtime.

There’s very little shame in that result for the Maple Leafs. Frustration, sure. But it’s an honourable outcome.

What’s driving everyone in Toronto banana cakes is how they lost. Not just this game but a lot of them recently. They were leading by two goals with 26 minutes left. They were up by one with less than nine minutes to go.

Then they let Alex Ovechkin have a shot alone, on a one-timer, in overtime.

That doesn’t look good on any team, especially after banana caking away a 4-1 lead on a big stage in the Centennial Classic two days earlier.

The Leafs have held the lead after 40 minutes a total of 20 times in 37 games this season. That’s good – it’s tied with Columbus for first in the league. The problem is they have won “only” 13 of those games, going 13-1-6 after dropping this last one in Washington. That’s the third worst win percentage when leading after two in the league.

So the youngest team in the league can’t play defence and therefore can’t defend a lead, right? They get jittery when up by a goal or two and everything goes pear-shaped. Darn rookies.

What a complete mess. Credit: Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports

Except that’s not really what happened.

If you go back and watch all six of Capitals goals, few of them can be pinned on the eight rookie skaters in the lineup. Freddy The Goat blew a tire and wasn’t covering the point on the PK on the first one – but the rest?

Two: Tyler Bozak loses his man and Nazem Kadri takes out the goalie. Three: Bozak has a soft rim behind the net picked off by a Capitals player’s skates, and JVR is anticipating the puck, headed to the wrong wing side, leaving his man wide open. Four: Leo Komarov in no man’s land. Five: Bozak loses puck in the offensive zone, loses Evgeny Kuznetsov coming back, bumps his own defender in front and Jake Gardiner doesn’t pick up the stick of the man (or men) in front. Overtime: Komarov and Kadri = ?????

The youngest Leafs I listed above are 26 years old and have played at least 360 regular season games in the NHL. They’re not old, but they’re older than the average age on this team (25.2).

That’s a simplistic breakdown above; there were more errors made in this error-filled game than the ones that led to goals. But given what happened in the Classic and some other recent games, the trends are there.

Obviously this team isn’t good enough to beat some of the better teams in the league consistently, and we shouldn’t expect that. Even after a win streak, they’re on pace for 93 points, which is average. But it’s lazy to blame their youth for that record. If anything, the Leafs have played their very best hockey over the last 15 or so games, and it’s in that stretch that the rookies have (a) had the most ice time all season and (b) contributed the most to that 9-4-4 hot streak.

To the charts:

This is the most the Leafs rookies have played all year. This is the most they have contributed all year.

The fact is the Leafs wouldn’t even have all those leads in all those games if not for the offence generated by Matthews, Marner, Nylander, Brown, Hyman and to a lesser extent Zaitsev, Soshnikov and Gauthier. They wouldn’t be losing games in overtime or the shootout (which, to be honest, is a tie where I’m from). They would probably lose them in the second period – because they’d already be down by two goals, unable to score, at least against a team like Washington.

Honestly, where would this team be if Matthews gets hurt tomorrow? Or Marner or Zaitsev?

They wouldn’t suddenly be better defensively.

That’s why it seems a little disingenuous to focus on youthful mistakes. The defensive errors we have witnessed the last few weeks haven’t been coming disproportionately from the Leafs youngest players, even as their coach heaps more responsibility on them.

The reality is many of the veterans in this lineup aren’t world beaters. Many of them were on the crappy teams from the past few seasons. For Toronto to consistently beat teams like Washington, legitimate Stanley Cup contenders, they can’t play Komarov 21.5 minutes a night. Or Kadri more than 20. Or JVR and Bozak for 15 together. Or Matt Martin for any… and we haven’t gotten to the blueline yet.

I think some of what we saw on Tuesday was simply the Leafs coming down from a high after Sunday’s win. When you walked into that dressing room at BMO Field after that outdoor game, it was pretty clear how over-the-moon they were. I asked Morgan Rielly what he would remember of the experience and his answer was the equivalent of “Everything!” in a few sentences.

That’s great. There was a big organizational build up to that game, and by almost every account, it delivered in terms of how it was received by the fans, the players and everyone on the staff. So much so that I think they should have an outdoor event like that every two or three years in the city. (Let’s get those ticket prices in line though.)

But it wasn’t just youthful exuberance that held the Leafs back in these two games (and a lot of others recently). It’s also that their veteran core isn’t good enough, especially defensively. This was glaring under both Ron Wilson and Randy Carlyle with some players like Bozak and JVR, but you can see it with Mike Babcock, too. The fact that he doesn’t want to play Marner with Matthews because he needs them to drive two different lines says something. The fact that Matthews is getting the hard matches now, as a 19 year old with not even a half-season under his belt, does as well.

But Babcock doesn’t have last change on the road, and against good teams and good coaches, like Barry Trotz, there will be holes. They’ll check Matthews into the ground – he had only one shot on goal in Washington, matching his lowest mark of the season – and throw their offensive weapons at lines that have issues defensively. (Kadri’s line, which has had a solid season, was dominated by the Capitals best.)

The only way to get around that is to get better. And I don’t mean the rookies.

Photo: Amber Searls-USA TODAY Sports