Leafs to play in Philadelphia on Friday

TORONTO (CP) -- The Maple Leafs have won only two of their last nine NHL games, and they are convinced it's merely a temporary setback.

No sweat, it's only November, they say.

They're just experiencing the late-autumn blahs, they insist.

"When you're in a funk, nothing feels right," says Steve Thomas, the first-liner who has scored all of one goal this season. "Your skates don't feel like they fit properly.

"You're not able to carry the puck as you normally would. When you're shooting, the puck seems to be too far away from you or too close to get a good shot on net. When you're going through a bit of a downer, it's everything about your game that you think isn't up to par."

At his rate, Thomas will score four goals all season.

Captain Mats Sundin, the Leafs' $7-million man (and that's U.S. dollars), has fewer points than teammate Yanic Perreault, a Los Angeles Kings castoff.

The reputation of the offence that led the league in goals scored last season has been saved only by the unexpected team-high 11 goals contributed by newcomer Jonas Hoglund.

Toronto is 12-8-3-1 after spoiling an exceptional October with an icky November.

A stat that reflects the type of hockey the Leafs are playing: they are 20th in the 28-team league in hits. Nobody is afraid to mess with them.

Manager-coach Pat Quinn says he has no plans to alter the roster -- even after the latest loss, 3-1 Tuesday night in Pittsburgh. His team's next game is Friday afternoon in Philadephia. He won't be cracking any whips in the interim.

"We have set some high standards for this team, and for us to be of championship calibre we have to have those kind of expectations," Quinn said. "But we can't be unrealistic that we should be perfect every night.

"In this situation, as a coach, you try to back off. I might be being too hard on these guys and they might be feeling it right now."

The good start to the season "might have been a false step for us," Quinn said.

"We came up a lot last year and the big fear we had at training camp was that we'd slip back down as a lot of teams do," he explained. "We worked hard through camp not to let that happen.

"All of a sudden we got a lot of points. Maybe we felt a little comfortable. Next thing you know we lose a couple of games and tighten up. If you watch Steve Thomas now, he's tighter than a drum. If you watch Sergei (Berezin), how many times has he tried to get through a whole bunch to get a shot? The scorers, the guys we look to and say, 'Hey, you did it last year,' are feeling the stress. Sometimes when you push you don't make the right decisions."

He insists team chemistry is fine.

"We made some changes. Did we affect that? I don't think so. I don't think chemistry is a problem. You want everybody to get along. You want everybody to feel good about themselves. You want everybody to support one another. And I believe we have that in that room right now."

Nikolai Antropov, Bryan Berard and Danny Markov were shaken up during the Tuesday game and did not practice. Dmitry Yushkevich and Igor Korolev were also absent. Antropov, who hurt an arm in a crease collision, is the only one who might be considered questionable for the game against the Flyers, Quinn said.

"There is no panic yet," Quinn added. "We're doing a lot of good things."

How about Hoglund? Getting panicky, Jonas?

"No. We're in every game. We're close. We're just making too many mistakes."

The Leafs, whose offence has been as flat lately as an uncapped, week-old beer, will try to get it going against the Flyers.

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