Morgan Rielly and Scott Laughton play in the Maple Leafs’ third period loss to the Oilers

Speaking to the media after the game, veteran defenseman Morgan Rielly didn’t mince words in addressing the team’s lack of effort in the final frame.

“It’s not that different from the San Jose game,” Rielly said. “If you go into the third period in a good position and you don’t execute, you’re not playing the way you should to win the game.”

Scott Laughton echoed a similar frustration with the way the Leafs approached the third period, detailing how he thinks the team needs to approach these situations differently.

“It’s hard to understand, we just have to be better,” Laughton said. “We have to manage games better in certain situations. You see those guys, you know how good they are at certain moments, and it can get you excited so quickly. We just have to know. We don’t have to make the perfect play every team, it’s a 60-minute game for a reason. You have to wear the team down and go the other way, play north, let them come to you. I don’t think we’ve done that enough.”

Perhaps most frustrating for the Leafs this year is the inconsistency on a nightly basis. Often it’s the middle frame where the team has struggled, but on Saturday the team stayed there through the first 40, only to fall apart in the third.

“They’re a good attacking team, I thought we did a good job within our structure,” Rielly said. “But if you don’t have enough men on the net, there’s clearly something going on with the structure, the communication, the execution, whatever it is. So we’re going to fix that.”

Toronto was defeated by a strong attacking group in Edmonton led by two of the best players in the NHL right now in Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl. Laughton acknowledged that fact as well, citing a lack of resiliency among this Maple Leafs group in facing those types of challenges.

“I think when things go a little bit south, sometimes you stand around and watch. They make it look that way sometimes when their guys get going,” Laughton said. “So time to pick ourselves up and get some points here at home. We have to start pushing and have some urgency.”

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