McDavid, Draisaitl dominate, Berube takes aim at Maple Leafs leaders

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So that’s what it looks like when a team’s top players take over.

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Maple Leafs fans have been waiting for most of the 2025-26 regular season to see it happen, and they certainly got their fill on Saturday night at Scotiabank Arena.

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Unfortunately for those in the crowd of 19,023 wearing blue and white, it wasn’t the players in blue and white we’re talking about.
Not William Nylander, who played through illness and couldn’t contribute as much as a shot goal.

Not John Tavares, who has struggled to produce lately and has one assist in his past five games.

And most definitely not captain Auston Matthews, who had yet another outing that featured little-to-no pop in his game and was nothing close to the difference-maker that he is paid to be.

Leafs coach Craig Berube took aim at his core after the game, though he did let Nylander off the hook a bit, saying No. 88 was “not even close to 75%” because of the illness the winger is fighting.

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But still.

After failing to hold a one-goal lead in the third period on Thursday in a 3-2 overtime loss against the San Jose Sharks, the Leafs had no determination in the final 20 minutes against the Oilers as Edmonton scored three goals before Steven Lorentz added one late for Toronto.

“Our leaders have to take control of it a lot more than they are right now,” Berube said. “It’s all a mindset. Whether down a goal, you have to have more urgency and being more direct in how we want to play.”

That’s not a hallmark of good teams, is it, a failure to close out the opposition in the third period, if not mount a comeback instead of the wilting as the Leafs did on Saturday.

Big night for Oilers duo

If you watched just a shift or two of the Oilers’ 6-2 spanking of the Leafs, you know we were talking off the top about Edmonton captain Connor McDavid and Leon Draisaitl.

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Each finished with three points.

McDavid, on the biggest stage in the National Hockey League on a Saturday night, performed like he’s been hearing the idea in some corners that Colorado Avalanche star Nathan MacKinnon has passed him as the best player in the game.

McDavid, his talent brimming over on this December night, skated angry. MacKinnon is only NHL peer in that regard. We haven’t seen Matthews do it once this season, not like he has in previous years.

When McDavid blew past a confused Oliver Ekman-Larsson and past a slower Morgan Rielly to open the scoring less than four minutes into the game, it was on.

“He scores a lot of goals, and some goals are bigger than others,” said former Leafs winger Zach Hyman, who scored the Oilers’ sixth goal. “When he has a nice celebration, it’s because he scored a nice one, and it’s a big one, and especially here.

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“It brings emotion on the bench, which during an 82-game season sometimes is hard to come by.

“To see him fired up and scoring that goal, you want to continue to push and push and push. It was a good night for us.”

The Leafs had no answer. Their best players didn’t fire them up.

McDavid got credit for a Troy Stecher own goal and helped set up Darnell Nurse for the Oilers’ third goal.

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A one-goal mirage

That the Leafs were behind by just a goal going into the third period, trailing 3-2, was a mirage. Draisaitl set up Vasily Podkolzin twice in the first two minutes of the third and the Leafs might as well have gone home then. It was over.

“When you have the two best players in the world, they can take over games and, obviously, they did it,” Hyman said. “I don’t know if surprise is the right word.”

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The Leafs aren’t a good team, not as we hit mid-December.

The Leafs are four points out of the second wildcard spot in the Eastern Conference, with four teams between them and eighth place.

It certainly feels like the gap is lot bigger right now, doesn’t it?

The Leafs had won four of their previous six games and managed to get a point in the other two, an anomaly after they won three in a row to start November.

The Leafs didn’t make much of a dent in the standings, though, and against McDavid, Draisaitl and the rest of the Oilers, they looked nothing like a team that could take a healthy run at a playoff spot.

We’re 31 games into the Leafs season and Berube still has to talk about playing with more urgency.

A lot of hockey remains, but that doesn’t imply it’s going to be good.

tkoshan@postmedia.com

X: @koshtorontosun

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