David Alter just shared John Tavares's answer on whether the Maple Leafs have played better than their results during this stretch.
Toronto has lost six straight and sits 26th in the NHL. Hiller's version of the past two weeks, though, is not the one his veteran center is giving.
Alter noted that Tavares was asked if he feels the team has played better than the results have shown. The 36-year-old answered, "I mean, probably not." The quote in the post trails off while he talks about a few games that "probably we haven't played the way we're…"
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Now set that next to what Hiller said about the six-game homestand, which ended 0-for-6: "You write your stories, but I'm here to tell you we deserved better than that over that six-game homestand."
The coach says the results were unfair. The veteran says to look at the games as a whole, and that some of them weren't up to standard. Those two messages can't both be the full truth.
Saturday's 1-0 loss to the Oilers is a fair test case. Anthony Stolarz stopped 22 of 23 shots, and Devon Levi made 19 saves for the shutout. Tavares, who played 17:48, put two shots on goal and finished without a point.
Is a coach and player gap a real problem for Toronto?
It can be, and the timing makes it worse. Toronto is 2-8-0 over its last 10 and 4-9-1 at home, so there is little margin for mixed signals from the locker room.
Tavares has been part of the problem on the ice too. He has 7 points in 12 games and is a -13, so his candor carries weight, and it isn't coming from a bystander.
We covered Auston Matthews's own read on Jim Hiller after the fifth straight loss, and he didn't hide how rough things are either. Matthews and Tavares both being this direct while the coach talks about deserving better is a pattern worth watching.
Defending your players publicly is part of a coach's job, and Hiller is entitled to see things his way. But when the veterans are the ones saying the performance wasn't good enough, insisting the team deserved better gets harder to sell. A coach who sounds more optimistic than his leaders risks losing the room.
Hiller has also drawn scrutiny for how he has used his fourth line against top lines during the skid, so the pressure on him isn't only about tone.
The Maple Leafs head to Chicago on Tuesday, November 17, with a six-game losing streak and two messages about it. Whichever one the players believe will show up on the ice.
This article was written with the help of artificial intelligence, based on public reports and official sources.
Who has the better read on the Maple Leafs' skid?
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