It's been nine years since the Maple Leafs have made the playoffs and they're going into the 2013 post-season playing as if they don't belong.

"I was mystified tonight," Toronto coach Randy Caryle said in the aftermath of Saturday night's sluggish 4-1 loss to the Montreal Canadiens in the regular-season finale for both team.

The Leafs showed a bit of jump to start — the Habs went without a shot for the first 11 minutes of the game, — and led 1-0 on a first-period Phil Kessel power-play goal. But they faded fast and Montreal went to the dressing room tied 1-1 and outshooting Toronto 9-6.

There was barely signs of a pulse in a second period that saw Montreal score twice.

"For whatever reason, it was like we went brain-dead," said Carlyle. "Our execution level went way down."


One of those man-advantages saw captain Dion Phaneuf mishandle the puck at the blue-line, a Leafs player fire the puck into the netting above the glass and an icing call.

They might as well have sent a line of Larry, Curly and Moe over the boards. It couldn't have been worse.

Could still meet in playoffs

Toronto and Montreal could meet in the playoffs. But that wasn't decided Saturday because Boston added to its point total by going to overtime in a loss to Washington, meaning that the Eastern Conference playoff matchup picture won't be complete until Sunday when Boston plays Ottawa in a makeup game.


Forward Jay McClement said the Leafs had to look after their own house, rather than wonder about their playoff opponent.



"The idea of [Montreal versus Toronto] is pretty cool," said Montreal forward Brendan Gallagher. "Obviously I'm assuming it would be the most emotional first-round series ever, so that aspect of it is cool. But for us, we don't really care who we're playing. It's about us. It matters what we do and that's all we're talking about. We'll watch the game [Sunday] and find out who we play."


Kessel on a roll

Kessel scored his 20th goal of the season for Toronto, notching his 10th goal in as many games.

Lars Eller had a goal and two assists to pace the Canadiens' pre-playoff message to Toronto. Gallagher, Andrei Markov, and Tomas Plekanec also scored for Montreal, which won despite going 0-for-6 on the power play.

The Canadiens (29-14-5) did it without No. 1 goalie Carey Price, who was given the night off in favour of Peter Budaj. Rubbing salt into the wound, Montreal chased Toronto starter James Reimer early in the third period.

"We wanted to impose the rhythm," Montreal coach Michel Therrien said in French. "The players did a fantastic job executing the game plan. These are games with a lot of emotion and the type of game you want to play. They executed it fantastically tonight."

Montreal outshot Toronto 28-17 on the night. And by the final whistle the Leafs had lost their discipline with a string of penalties.




Coach pulls Reimer


"It wasn't my best game," said Reimer. "A couple of unlucky bounces and stuff like that. You take some of the positives and then you flush it."

Carlyle agreed on both counts.



"None. It's over."


McClement had a different view.

"I don't think it's time to quite flush this game quite yet," he counselled. "I think we can still learn from it and have this in the back of our minds, that's it's only going to get tougher and we have to have our A game every night and regroup from there."

Toronto came into the game having won three of the four previous meetings between the two this season, outscoring the Canadiens 15-7. The Habs' lone win prior to Saturday was a 5-2 decision Feb. 27 in Toronto.




The Leaf power play went 1-for-7.

Mayhem seemed imminent when Carlyle started Colton Orr, McLaren and Fraser for the opening faceoff. Orr and Montreal's Brandon Prust were jawing before the puck drop but stuck to hockey after one of the referees skated over to have words.