The trade deadline can’t get here soon enough.

Coach Ron Wilson acknowledged his players may well be looking over their shoulders, distracted by potential change that could come by Monday’s 3 p.m. league deadline.

“Some things are bothering them. That will all clear up in 36 hours,” said Wilson, after his Leafs lost 4-2 to the Washington Capitals on Saturday. “Then I won’t have to worry about it. The rumours will be gone.”

“Now it goes on like a month, the trade deadline, not two or three days.”

The coach blamed goalie James Reimer for allowing two easy goals, then blamed the pressures and rumours of the trade deadline for the team’s 1-7-1 slump that has left the front office staff in a predicament.

“The two goals early in the game were stoppable chances,” said Wilson. “They (the Capitals) got saves at one end, we didn’t. We dug a hole because of that. And we’re kind of always waiting now for something bad to happen. We’ve got to find a way to get over that.

“You can pull a goalie. I thought tonight I’ll call a time out, tell everybody to relax, that we can get out of this hole. Then you start playing tentative hockey. That’s what happens. With all the other stuff that bubbles around at the outside like trade deadlines, those little things that affect players.

“You worry you’ll be the one moved. It affects a young team.”

The Maple Leafs appear to be wilting — they are a young team, after all — under the pressure of their first real playoff chase under the current regime. Maybe, they’re simply not good enough, or out of gas, and really in need of some shakeup.

Whatever the case, a game that had huge post-season implications for them — against the Washington Capitals, a team they’re competing with for that final playoff spot — was a dud.

The Capitals, playing for the second night in a row, were the more energetic team, the Leafs the more lethargic. Or nervous. And Florida, a plucky team that keeps finding ways to win, is in town Tuesday.

It was Toronto’s seventh loss in nine games (1-7-1), a span in which they’ve been outscored 35-15. The last time the Leafs picked up just three points in nine games was over the first nine games of the horrible 2009-10 season. Prior to it, Leafs GM Brian Burke was sitting pretty, being able to pick his spot. Would he be a buyer, or let this young team grow together.

Now, Burke’s in a tough spot. Could he be a seller? Can he let this young team wallow in another losing year? The squeeze, by other GMs, is on.

Wilson said he didn’t know what Burke had planned. But he said the team doesn’t need a change in personnel.

“We’ve got to figure out a way to get a save here and there and we will be in good shape,” said Wilson. “We were in good shape before. The last two or three weeks, we’ve had trouble keeping the puck out of our net.”

No, Reimer wasn’t very good at all. But neither were the rest of his teammates. His defence was porous in front of him and the team’s offence couldn’t muster anything of significance. The team was booed off the ice each period.

The addition of Matt Frattin, called up from the Marlies, did nothing to help jump-start the Leafs offence.

The oft-injured and otherwise scratched Colby Armstrong scored his first goal of the year, in fact his first goal since Feb. 26, 2011 (against Pittsburgh). It came in the third after the Capitals had built a 4-0 lead through two periods.

Then Tim Connolly, with his third goal in five games, made it 4-2 by banking a shot off goalie Capitals goalie Michal Neuvirth.

How bad was the offence? Connolly and Matthew Lombardi lucked in to a 2-on-0 and couldn’t get a shot on Neuvirth. The play went the other way, and like tic-tac-toe Keith Aucoin had his first goal of the year and Washington had a 4-0 lead in the second period.

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Reimer was jeered after allowing two soft goals that had the Leafs down 2-0 just 3:45 into the game.

“The fans have been loyal to us, to me,” he said. “They’re the ones that pay the money. If they feel I wasn’t playing up to snuff and want to give it to me. That’s they’re right. I was a fan once, too. It’s all good.

“There’s no reason to get all down, get frustrated. We still have a chance.”

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