Not a headline I expected we’d have on our site in October.



But 13 games into the season, there is an awful lot of angst in Toronto over the Maple Leafs. Their 6-5-2 start has been underwhelming, certainly, and if the playoffs started today, based on points percentage, they wouldn’t be in them. (They own the 12th-best record in the East.)



So … fire the coach?



I don’t think so. And definitely not now.



If we pick through what’s gone wrong for the Leafs so far, most of it is not on Babcock and his staff. The reasons for their poor record early on, in order, are something along the lines of:



1. A brutal schedule that has included four back-to-backs in which the second game was against a rested team. That’s extremely abnormal. They also played their first 13 games in 25 days, which is 3.64 per week, which is 18 percent more games than teams typically play.



2. Inconsistent goaltending. The Leafs...