On Friday night against San Jose, Auston Matthews took a high hit from Brenden Dillon without a reply from his teammates. The next night in Montreal, Tyson Barrie was dropped in almost the exact same spot on the ice via a big hit from Jeff Petry, who was punished with a menacing drive-by from Matthews.
Making matters worse in the past week — and the “softness” debate is a talking point right now because of this primarily — the Leafs have lost a couple of rivalry matchups on the road where the game got away from them in the third period without the team mounting much in the way of a pushback (note: both games were in back-to-back situations against rested clubs).