TORONTO -- One team on the ice had nothing to lose and nothing to play for. The other team had its playoff hopes on the line and was trying to save its season. By the time the lights went out at Air Canada Centre and on the Toronto Maple Leafs season following a 4-2 loss to the Winnipeg Jets, it was difficult to tell which was which. The Leafs are all but done and would now need a miracle to make the playoffs. Losing the game was one thing, built on ill-timed mistakes and mental lapses. But why the lacklustre Leafs couldnt match the intensity of a team outside the playoff race left goaltender James Reimer and others grasping for answers. "I dont know if I can really give you an explanation for that, for how it appeared," said Reimer, who gave up four goals on 41 shots in losing his sixth straight start. "I know in our heads we wanted it, but maybe it didnt show it there." When it didnt show, fans booed the Leafs off the ice in their final home game of the season. A few threw beer cups. Players could at least understand the frustration after this defeat left them stuck on 84 points, one back in the Eastern Conference wild-card race of the Columbus Blue Jackets, who have five games to play to the Leafs three. By winning Saturday night, the New Jersey Devils also reached 84 points and passed Toronto (38-33-8) because they have four more games left to play. Phil Kessel, who scored his 37th goal of the season 2:45 into the first period to match a career high, didnt want to concede anything about realizing the playoff dream was essentially gone. "You never know," Kessel said. "We still have three games left and were going to play hard. You know, whatever happens, happens here." The Leafs finish their season with three games on the road: Tuesday at the Tampa Bay Lightning, Thursday at the Florida Panthers and Saturday at the Ottawa Senators. But the Jets (35-34-10), who were officially eliminated Thursday with a loss to Pittsburgh, managed to beat Toronto with goals by Bryan Little, Jacob Trouba, Tobias Enstrom and Olli Jokinen. "I thought it was a great effort start to finish," Jets captain Andrew Ladd said. "Offensively we were able to sustain pressure throughout the whole game. Thats just through hard work, being in the right place. ... We can be proud of the effort we put forth tonight." The Jets won despite winger Evander Kane being a healthy scratch. Paul Maurice offered no explanation other to call it a "coachs decision." When asked if he enjoyed playing spoiler against the team that fired him in 2008 after two seasons without a playoff appearance, Maurice offered up a wry smile and the politically correct answer. "No," Maurice said. "You know what, its a lousy job. You dont ever want to play spoiler. Weve talked a lot about being where you are and thats where we were tonight and we gave our best effort." A "solid effort" was something that Leafs centre Tyler Bozak noted was lacking at times Saturday night. At times, he thought the Jets were the harder-working team but didnt understand why. "We shouldve been (the harder working team) the whole game seeing the situation we were in," Bozak said. The situation was already bleak, following a streak of eight straight regulation losses in March. The Leafs figured to need to run the table to give them a realistic shot at the playoffs. Despite Kessels goal, and then Nazem Kadris on the power play at 13:45 of the first when Jets goaltender Ondrej Pavelec mishandled the puck behind the net, Toronto couldnt do much after giving up a goal to Trouba with 3.2 seconds left in the first period. Coach Randy Carlyle couldnt figure out what went wrong in the games final 40 minutes. "We just seemed like we were a flat hockey club from that point," Carlyle said. "We chased the game. And we didnt seem to have any energy as a group. Thats the way I saw it. It seemed like we were chasing the game, the pace of the game. They won more one-on-one battles than we did, thats for sure." Centre Dave Bolland, who played just nine minutes 15 seconds on a sore ankle that Carlyle said got rolled on occasionally, said bluntly that the Leafs "got outworked." Captain Dion Phaneuf didnt want to go that far, pointing instead to "costly mistakes" as the reason for the loss. No matter the explanation, the Leafs showed yet another example of maddening inconsistency in game 79 of a season that started with such promise and took such an inexplicable turn toward disaster last month. "We seem to find ways to always wonder, What the heck is going on? Why? Whats going on there? Why are we reacting in that manner?" Carlyle said. "Thats the frustrating part for us is that when we are able to execute and our work ethic is strong, that were a hockey club that can give teams difficulty and play to a high level. "But our consistency level, it goes from game-to-game and sometimes period to period." Finding a solution to that problem will now more than likely have to wait until next season. To make the playoffs, the Leafs would undoubtedly need to sweep their final three games and hope for the Blue Jackets and Devils to fall apart. They can be eliminated as early as Tuesday. Still, Carlyle and his players have no choice but to get ready to go on the road to face the Lightning. "Weve got to get ourselves ready," he said. "Weve got to re-energize our group because we were a flat group tonight. We were a flat hockey club and we just didnt seem to have any jump that was required." NOTES -- Leafs winger Joffrey Lupul started the game despite being bothered by what the team is calling a lower-body injury. He left in the third when he aggravated it, according to Carlyle. ... Winnipegs Dustin Byfuglien left the game in the second period with an upper-body injury and did not return. ... Legendary Leafs goaltender Johnny Bower was interviewed on the video board and said that a woman who was proposed to minutes earlier wearing his No. 1 jersey was actually his granddaughter. Bower then got a standing ovation following a video tribute. Ryan Kesler Ducks Jersey .A. Happ is coming off his first start of the year, a win at Philadelphia Monday. The former Phillie allowed three hits in five scoreless frames of a 3-0 triumph. Giovanni Fiore Jersey . The redshirt freshman finished the regular season with nearly 3,500 passing yards, and 35 touchdowns with another three on the ground while leading the Seminoles to the top of the BCS Rankings. http://www.authenticduckspro.com/Hampus-lindholm-ducks-jersey/ . No, the San Antonio star didnt announce retirement plans during an off day at the NBA Finals on Wednesday. John Gibson Jersey . The Mets made the announcement Sunday night. Parnell blew a save on opening day against Washington and the next day it was revealed he had partially torn right elbow ligament. Ryan Getzlaf Jersey . Aaron Hill and Cliff Pennington hit home runs in the first inning for the Diamondbacks, who beat the Miami Marlins 3-2 on Friday night.KANSAS CITY, Mo. -- Alex Gordon had two firsts Sunday: six RBIs and a curtain call. Gordon went 4 for 4 with a pair of three-run homers and a career-high six RBIs as the Kansas City Royals beat the Baltimore Orioles 8-6. Gordon drove a 1-1 pitch from Ubaldo Jimenez (2-5) out to right with two outs in the fifth with Nori Aoki and Billy Butler aboard. Gordon, who led the Royals with 20 home runs last year, had gone 134 at-bats without a home run. Gordon homered in his next at-bat, a three-run shot off left-hander Troy Patton in the seventh after Eric Hosmer walked and Butler doubled for his third hit. The Kauffman Stadium crowd then gave Gordon a lengthy standing ovation, calling him out of the dugout. Gordon said he had "never" had a curtain call. "I didnt know what to do," Gordon said. "They told me just to go wave my helmet. They just started yelling at me. I was downstairs enjoying the moment. They told me to come up and give the crowd a wave. It was my first. Hopefully, its not the last. It was pretty cool. Its something I want forget. "Its fun when we play like this and the crowd starts doing what they do. It makes it really exciting." It was Gordons third career multi-homer game. His six RBIs matched a Royals season high. His four hits matched a career high, the 10th time he has accomplished that. "Even though I was making good pitches, they found a way to hit the ball hard. I felt really good and I made a lot of good pitches," Jimenez said. "They had a good approach. I threw a lot of sinkers down and they found the hole every time. They had a really good game. Theres nothing I can do but move on." Gordons second homer turned out to be necessary. Adam Jones hit a three-run homer off Royals reliever Aaron Crow in the ninth. It was the first runs Crow allowed in 20 relief appearances and 17 innings. Greg Holland got the final two outs for his 12th save in 13 appearances. James Shields (6-3) picked up his fifth win in six starts, holding the Orioles to three runs and nine hits over seven inninggs.dddddddddddd. Shields won back-to-back starts at Kauffman Stadium for the first time. Shields settled down after a three-run third when he gave up five hits, including four straight to open the inning. "The difference (was) I was getting my ground balls and they found holes," Shields said of the third inning. "I was making my pitches, trying to get a double play that inning and they were just finding some good holes." Jimenez, who was 2-0 with a 0.46 ERA in his first three May starts, was pulled after five innings. He permitted five runs on eight hits with one walk and seven strikeouts. "The pitch to Gordon was uncharacteristic," Orioles manager Buck Showalter said. "He had, really, just the one (bad) pitch to Gordon. He tried to go down and away, and it came back in and came into a sweet spot. He hadnt walked anybody to that point, either. Except for one pitch I thought he was good. After the first inning he was pretty crisp." Nick Markakis singled home J.J. Hardy, who had three hits, and David Lough in the Orioles third. Manny Machado, who had three hits, had a sacrifice fly in the third to score Jonathan Schoop for the other run off Shields. Butler singled home Aoki with two outs in the first for the first Kansas City run. Lorenzo Cains single in the fourth scored Gordon with the other Royals run. Notes: RHP Dylan Bundy, the Orioles top prospect and the fourth overall pick in the 2011 draft, is scheduled to throw an inning in extended spring Tuesday in Florida. It will be his first time to face opposing hitters since having Tommy John surgery last June 27. .Royals 2B Omar Infante, who is on the disabled list with a lower back disc irritation, has begun to hit off the tee and is taking slow rollers. .The Orioles dropped to 1-6 in Sunday games. They are 21-14 on other days. ... Both managers, Ned Yost and Showalter, won challenge reviews: Yost in the fourth inning when Gordon was called out at second, Showalter in the seventh when Cain was first ruled safe for an infield single. That was overturned. ' ' '