Sens rough up Toronto

The Toronto Maple Leafs were raked and bagged in an embarrassing 6-2 loss to the Senators in Ottawa on Saturday night.

Coupled with the Boston Bruins winning in overtime over the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1, in extra time, the Leafs are four points back of second place Bruins in the Atlantic.

Defense has suddenly eluded the Maple Leafs in their four most recent games.

Cody Ceci scored for the Sens – file photo by Lewis Bleiman

They are surrendering goals faster than the NHL can count.

“[Defense] has to be of the utmost importance for us,” John Tavares said. “We’re not going to have success if we’re giving up the amount of goals we’re giving up.

“It probably feels that one little bounce or one mistake is proving very costly, but that’s the way it’s going right now, and that’s the way this time of year gets. Everything gets very tight and the margin for error is very small, and that’s no matter who you’re playing against.”

Toronto dropped to 43-24-5.

“We’ve given up way too many goals,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said. “You can’t take the puck out of your net like we have and have success.

“The bottom line is we all know how to play defense, we all know where to stand and we’re not doing a good enough job, and tonight we weren’t good enough.”

Tavares scored his 40th of the season and Morgan Rielly also scored for the Leafs.

Despite playing out the season, the Sens are officially out of the playoff race, Anders Nilsson made 35 saves to get the win.

Magnus Paajarvi struck for two goals in the win.

“That was, quite truthfully, probably our best game of the year,” Senators head coach Marc Crawford said. “If you look at all the things that went in our favor, right from the goaltending to the defense, how well a lot of them skated tonight, how well they hit, how well they finished checks, moved the puck. We had four lines that all played good.”

Cody Ceci, Brian Gibbons, Anthony Duclair, and Oscar Lindberg added single markers for the Sens.

Ottawa improved to 25-41-6 with the unexpected victory.

“It’s always fun beating Toronto, whatever the scenario is, wherever each team sits in the standings. It’s always a good matchup,” Ottawa’s Zack Smith said.

[WATCH: All Maple Leafs vs. Senators highlights]

Garret Sparks made 38 saves in the loss.

“We need more emotion,” Sparks said. “I’m an emotional player; I need more emotion. We need more emotion from everybody. We need people to get angry. We need people to step up and be mad and take it personally.”