The Maple Leafs enter their final 18 games of the season knowing they can make up for a slide the past 10 days that has taken them out of the wild-card berth.

And the push will be led by head coach Mike Babcock, who continually strikes a solid, confident figure, even to players who are seeing him for the first time as a coach.

“The passion he brings for games . . . it’s amazing,” said centre Brian Boyle, who joined the team Leafs last Wednesday after a deadline deal with Tampa Bay. “The knowledge he has of other people throughout the league, you have to love the game to know what he knows.”

That will be more important than ever for the Leafs who, despite trading for veterans Boyle and Eric Fehr, remain the youngest team in the NHL.

Babcock is hardly stressed out over his team’s recent slide — five games without a win and more blown third-period leads.

No team in the league has entered the third period with leads more times than the Leafs; but Toronto has capitalized just over 60 per cent on those chances, compiling a 10-1-5 mark. The result has been a basket full of points left on the table — Toronto is 1-8 in games that have gone to overtime or the shootout — that could easily have the Leafs in a playoff berth now.

Still, Babcock finds time to bring fun into the hockey proceedings.

“I want to get this out of the way,” the coach said, entering his post practice media scrum, taking off his Leafs ball cap, and replacing it with a Merrimack College hat, then a hat from the University of New Hampshire.

The hat dance came after Babcock lost a bet with James van Riemsdyk, a former New Hampshire player, who placed a bet on the outcome of a Hockey East tournament game between the Wildcats and Merrimack College, which features Babcock’s son Michael as a left winger.

“Don’t forget to tell James the bet has been paid up,” Babcock said, smiling.

Even at this late stage of the season, where every game is essentially a must-win type game, it doesn’t hurt to keep things light. Mitch Marner, who was a minus-4 in Friday’s loss to Anaheim, was doing a post-practice scrum when he noticed Matthews poking fun at him from behind all the cameras. And a host of players remained on the ice after the practice, in part because they enjoy each other’s company as hockey players.

That should help Babcock, as he tries to correct the team’s poor performance with late leads, and as he tries to get more out of veteran players while team struggles to score.

Toronto, which still leads the East with 194 goals, has managed just eight over the last five games. Van Riemsdyk has two goals over his last 18 games, Tyler Bozak three in 19, and Leo Komarov three in 22.

Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading... Loading...

“Well, the last game, they got wounded . . . they got wounded twice this year (the other time against the Islanders),” Babcock said of the van Riemsdyk-Bozak-Marner line. “But they have been good for us and we need to get them on a roll.”

That has to start Tuesday when Babcock’s former team, the Detroit Red Wings, visit Toronto.

Read more about: