Viewed from some angles, the Maple Leafs are the very picture of a fishtailing big rig. They haven’t managed a win in five straight games. Key men in charge of defensive-zone coverage have been nodding off mid-game. Coach Randy Carlyle is flipping lines in practice like a merciless kid with a video controller.

You can get the distinct sense that bad things could happen if they don’t promptly halt this season-long slump; that the fishtailing rig could devolve into the jackknifed tractor-trailer that becomes the Burke-ian 18-wheeler speeding off a proverbial cliff.

But for all the gathering panic in Leafland in the lead-up to a Wednesday-Thursday back-to-back with Tampa Bay and Buffalo in which the Leafs desperately need a win, there is relative serenity in pockets of the roster that could have been expected to be mid-crisis flashpoints.

The Free Jake Gardiner movement never did arrive at the gates of Ricoh Coliseum with their pitchforks and torches; the slick-skating defenceman who played 75 games for the Leafs a season ago is expected be in the lineup for Wednesday night’s home game against the Lightning after spending most of his long recovery from a concussion with the Marlies. Gardiner surely would have arrived with the big club at least a few days earlier had his agent not lobbied for his promotion with a now-infamous Twitter post. But now that he’s got himself out of the minors, it will be good to see if he can get the puck out of the Toronto end.

And as for the Trade For Roberto Luongo lobby — well, its proponents have gone all but silent after a voluminous off-season in which the Vancouver goaltender was rumoured to be headed to Toronto in a flurry of chatter that never seemed to abate.

As Ben Scrivens said earlier this season: “I’d walk into a restaurant and the server was going, ‘Oh, hey — I heard Luongo’s coming.’ You go to a bar and that’s all you see on TSN — his face.”

Scrivens and colleague James Reimer deserve more than a little credit for providing respectable work in the face of all that unavoidable noise. For all the talk about a need for an upgrade in the crease, goaltending has been among the least of the Leafs’ worries this season.

On the contrary, respectable puckstopping is among the biggest reasons to believe the Leafs can avoid the cliff-diving fate of a season ago. In four of the past five years, the Leafs have finished either 29th or 30th in the NHL in team save percentage. This year they’re running a solid 11th.

“With two young goaltenders, that’s not so bad,” Leafs GM Dave Nonis told TSN radio on Tuesday. “We don’t feel our goaltending has been an issue.”

There are those who’d quibble with that. Certainly Carlyle would prefer that one of Reimer or Scrivens emerged as a clear No. 1. Before Reimer went down with a strained knee ligament last month, the coach said he thought Reimer was “pretty close” to establishing himself in that role.

Since then, Carlyle said choosing between the two hasn’t been so easy — although it’s a good bet Reimer gets the start on Wednesday after taking over to begin the third period of Saturday’s 5-4 shootout loss to Winnipeg.

“We’ve thought of alternating. ‘This is your start tomorrow. The next day, it’s the other guy’s,’” Carlyle said. “Those are all the things you run through the back of your mind. . . . If not, you wait for someone to emerge as the guy.”

Certainly there are fans who don’t relish the moments when Reimer and Scrivens emerge from their crease fixing to make a play. After a handful of years under the tutelage of Francois Allaire, the revered pioneer of the position who appeared to de-emphasize the role of puck-handling in the goaltender’s toolbox, the Leafs have put renewed focus on the value of goaltenders occasionally acting as a third defenceman.

“It’s something we’re working on and trying to get better at,” Reimer said. “There’s more freedom, maybe a little more emphasis on it. You’ve just got to get better at it and get more comfortable with it.”

When it’s done well, it can be a weapon. Reimer said he looks back at last year’s Eastern Conference final and remembers the New York Rangers being stymied by the handiwork of New Jersey goaltender Martin Brodeur.

“I thought Marty eliminated New York’s ability to forecheck, just by being a D-man back there,” Reimer said. “Obviously you’re probably never going to be as good as Marty Brodeur because he’s arguably the best goalie at puckhandling ever.”

How good are Reimer and Scrivens?

Said Rick St. Croix, the Leafs goalie coach: “I think it’s a journey they’ve got to get better at, and I think they’re paying attention to it and working on it. Time will move along and they will get better at it.”

Time can’t move fast enough for Leaf fans who have grumbled, in the arena and online, when Reimer and Scrivens — especially Scrivens — have found themselves embroiled in some memorable misadventures away from the blue ice. In those moments, the Twitter hashtag #stayinyournet has become a thing.

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“I don’t go on Twitter or read the newspaper or listen to anybody outside the coaches to find out what was good or what was bad,” Scrivens said. “Generally I already know and, frankly, I don’t really care for other people’s opinions on it.”

Indeed, as Scrivens was pointing out on Tuesday, playing the puck is far less important than stopping it. On that front, Toronto’s goaltenders are doing a better job than most figured they ever would.

While a club searches for a calming influence in a moment of chaos, perhaps it will be the men in the pads who gently apply the brakes and stop another promising season from spinning out of control.

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