Dion Phaneuf was back. The results, though, were the same for the Leafs.

With their captain making a much anticipated return from a leg injury, the Leafs looked no different than the club that has struggled since the beginning of November, losing 4-1 to the Philadelphia Flyers on Thursday night.

The Flyers, one of the class teams in the Eastern Conference, put on a clinic at the Air Canada Centre.

The Flyers’ first three goals came off shots from the point, the type of play the Leafs have been desperate to make this season. Ville Leino and Chris Pronger watched their point shots hit paydirt in the first period.

Daniel Briere made it 3-0 in the second by tapping in a rebound of a shot off the end boards.

Toronto put together a great start to the second period, and were rewarded in the 16th minute when Mikhail Grabovski converted a good cross-crease feed from Clarke MacArthur.

But the Flyers were clearly the superior team. They took advantage of a bad pinch at the Flyers blue line by Phaneuf and went away on a 2-on-1 break. Briere finished it off with his second goal of the period and 16th of the season for a 4-1 lead.

This was the Leafs’ second loss in a row, following a 5-2 setback in Pittsburgh on Wednesday. The Leafs are now 2-2 in a 10-day period where they play the top five teams in the Eastern Conference.

While the Leafs did beat Washington in the shootout Monday, the players acknowledged they were fortunate to win that game after playing poorly through two periods and trailing 4-1.

The past two nights, Toronto has been clearly outclassed.

Phaneuf’s return was expected to give the Leafs a shot in the arm. Instead, the club displayed the same bag of mistakes and poor puck decisions that continue to send this supposed season of hope in the wrong direction.

The Leafs are now 5-13 since the beginning of November. They have been shut out six times already this season and looked like they were well on their way to No. 7 until Grabovsky broke some of the tension with his second-period goal.

But the club’s top players are either snakebit (Kris Versteeg) or simply playing well under expectations. Phil Kessel, for example, has only three goals in his last 19 games.

With Phaneuf back, there was some hope in the air that the Leafs would look more like the team that started the season 4-0. But that team is a distant memory.

Goalie Jean-Sebastien Giguere returned to the nets after a one-game absence (another groin strain). But nothing went right for the home side.

And this roster will remain intact likely into the New Year. Leaf GM Brian Burke’s self imposed Dec. 9 trade freeze arrived Thursday and there wasn’t even a decent trade rumour to get the local hockey scene buzzing.

The NHL’s holiday roster freeze arrives Dec. 19 and lifts on the 28th. Burke has long since maintained he will not upset a player’s life with a trade in the Christmas season.

The club will play Montreal at home Saturday before a three-game western swing next week.

“You don’t go out there thinking, ‘Jeez, am I okay?’ You go out there knowing you’re okay, and I know I’m okay,” said Phaneuf who missed 16 games because of a deep laceration near his knee on his left leg.

“I’ve been cleared. I’ve practised for a week and I feel good.”

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Phaneuf was cut on Nov. 2 during a game against Ottawa when he tumbled to the ice with forward Peter Regin from the Senators. Regin’s skate blade sliced through Phaneuf’s flesh down to the bone, leaving a five-inch scar on the inside of his left leg just above the knee.

During emergency surgery, doctors found Phaneuf’s medial collateral ligament had been nicked and it had to be stitched together as they fixed the other internal damage.

Complicating matters, a day after being released from the hospital, Phaneuf had a reaction to one of the antibiotics he was taking and his skin became inflamed. He was readmitted to hospital.

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