Leafs staying positive

It’s spring but the Leafs are falling, with their playoff hopes fading quickly. Their losing streak has reached eight and the pressure is mounting with each loss.

In an attempt to lift the spirits of his sinking squad, Randy Carlyle began Monday’s practice with a ball-hockey scrimmage. It put smiles on a few faces, and for a brief moment it drew attention away from the Leafs’ epic, eight-game losing streak.

“The shock factor, the depressed, whatever state you want, when you come in and you don’t have any music playing in the room, that’s a tell-tale sign.”

Nazem Kadri: “A lot of those games we’ve played, we felt that we’ve played well enough to win, and haven’t. Simple enough. So we’ve got to get back to having fun, see some smiles around the dressing room. Hopefully that activates our success.”

Kadri didn’t have much success on Saturday night against Detroit. He was on the ice for back-to-back goals in the second period, and was actually benched until the third period, where he saw his ice time reduced to only four shifts – that’s less than four minutes.

Jonathan Bernier — who has started in net for the last three losses — still sees a light at the end of the tunnel. “You know, the crazy thing is we’re still in it. We lost eight games in a row and we’re still in it. We know we’ve just got to win one and I’m sure the ball’s gonna start going on our side after.”

Noticeably absent from today’s practice were Phil Kessel, James Van Riemsdyk and Carl Gunnarsson. Carlyle considered it a ‘maintenance day’ for all three, but expects them to play against Calgary on Tuesday.