Marner: Leafs playing 'awesome hockey' despite blowing leads

Mitch Marner is upset that his Toronto Maple Leafs keep coughing up leads in crushing losses, but he doesn't want external pressures to frustrate the team.

"Obviously, pissed off about it, but ... all these games we've been playing, we've played some really good hockey," Marner said after the Maple Leafs blew a two-goal lead and lost 4-2 to the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday. "We've just given (leads) back. We've had a lot of chances to extend leads in games and haven't done a good job of that."

Toronto's defeat was its fourth straight and fourth in which the club squandered a late lead. Three of the collapses have come in the third period.

Marner believes the team should tune out any criticism about its inability to close out games lately.

"We've got to ignore what everyone else says. We know we're a great hockey team," he said. "We show it every night. I mean, these last four games that we've had leads, we've played some awesome hockey. ... Stuff goes your way sometimes, (and sometimes) stuff doesn't. So for us, we just can't get frustrated at each other. We know we're doing the right things."

Marner added that the Leafs can't "let anything outside of us frustrate us or get us angry" before again referring to what he believes is external pressure to be upset about their recent play.

He said he doesn't feel frustration seeping in but thinks "a lot of people on the outside are trying to do that."

The Maple Leafs have been streaky of late. They lost three straight to conclude 2023, then won all three games on a California road trip and another against the lowly San Jose Sharks at home before the latest four-game skid.

Toronto held a 2-0 lead on Tuesday, but Leon Draisaitl made it 2-1 late in the second period. Derek Ryan tied it early in the third, and Ryan McLeod buried the winner with 3:05 to go before Evan Bouchard's empty-netter sealed Edmonton's franchise-record 11th consecutive victory.

The Leafs fell to 21-13-8 and occupy third place in the Atlantic Division. They're seven points back of the second-place Florida Panthers and one point ahead of the fourth-place Detroit Red Wings with a game in hand on both clubs.