Leafs flat at home, in own zone yet again in loss to Canes

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The way the Maple Leafs have mucked up their end of the ice, the home repair bill this autumn will leave them in substantial debt.

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Persistent problems moving the puck to their top offensive players haunted them again on Sunday, in back-to-back losses to a visiting team missing key players.

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Logan Stankoven’s third-period goal completed a three-goal comeback by the Carolina Hurricanes for a 5-4 victory over the Leafs in the annual Hall of Fame Game at Scotiabank Arena.

Following the 39 shots by Boston the night before, the Canes out-did the Leafs 45-20.

But there was no inspiration for the Leafs from the great names on hand, as they were both outworked and outsmarted.

And what should have been a bounty of points from 12 home dates among the first 16 games ended with an overall record of 8-7-1. Now eight of the next 11 are away, though only one is out of the Eastern time zone.

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A combination of Dennis Hildeby and his goalposts kept the Leafs afloat until the third period, one crossbar on a 4-on-3 Canes power play, another on one of three breakaways.

Coach Craig Berube’s blood was boiling on the bench at his team’s stream of unforced turnovers.

Auston Matthews’ ninth goal of the season provided a brief two-goal lead at 4-2 in the second period, career No. 410 putting him 10 behind Mats Sundin who was in the house.

But not long after, Sean Walker’s screen shot found twine.

Jake McCabe lost the puck on the Canes’ winner, but he was not alone in making costly errors.

The Leafs were somehow up by one after a five-goal first period. It didn’t help to lose defenceman Oliver Ekman-Larsson for that frame with a lower body shot block injury, with the club already playing without Chris Tanev the past few games.

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After a creative wraparound exit pass by Morgan Rielly set Matthew Knies up to feed William Nylander, Toronto didn’t get another shot on Hurricanes rookie goalie Brandon Bussi for 10 minutes. During that span, a poor breakout led to McCabe’s holding call and Sebastian Aho’s wicked one-timer to tie it 1-1.

When Knies, Nylander and Matthews were caught deep in Carolina ice on a missed chance, Seth Jarvis scored on the ensuing odd-man rush.

But John Tavares scored his ninth goal of the season in career game 1,200, then set up Nylander on the rare instance this season of power-play goals in consecutive games for Toronto.

Besides starting Hildeby for Anthony Stolarz after the Swede cleaned up Saturday against the Bruins, citing the latter’s eventful 12-game workload with a .889 save percentage, Berube was without Scott Laughton (upper body) and Steven Lorentz (undisclosed). That brought Calle Jarnkrok and Sammy Blais out of the stands to join Max Domi on the fourth line.

Lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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