TORONTO – Having so many Ontario-born players looking to impress hometown fans of a team they grew up watching usually bodes well for the Kraken whenever they pay a visit to this city.

And early on in this 4-1 loss Thursday night to the Toronto Maple Leafs, the Kraken had plenty of jump from forwards such as Shane Wright, Brandon Tanev, Jared McCann and Tye Kartye, while defenseman Jamie Oleksiak was also throwing his weight around. Alas, the Kraken were also short one big Toronto-area native in Brandon Montour while already missing nearby local Vince Dunn – who’s had some of his best performances at Scotiabank Arena — on a night when the absence of those defenders eventually was felt big.

The highly-skilled Leafs’ forwards eventually caught the Kraken flat-footed a few too many times in their own end, getting a late first period goal by Matthew Knies and two more in the second from William Nylander before cruising from there. Meanwhile, the Kraken, after their early energy, struggled to generate scoring chances until Eeli Tolvanen managed to put a shot through traffic with 3:28 to go in regulation.

But Auston Matthews scored on an empty net in the final two minutes with goalie Joey Daccord pulled for an extra attacker.

Montour, who grew up in neighboring Brantford, Ont., wound up missing the game due to the birth of a daughter – his absence coming just one game after he logged the first Kraken hat-trick by a defender on a four-point night by him in Montreal. With Dunn, born in the adjacent suburb of Mississauga and raised in the nearby town of Lindsay, already out several weeks with an injury, the Kraken found themselves down two power play “quarterbacks” and forced to rely on seldom-used AHL call-up Cale Fleury in that role.

While Fleury did what he could, the power play went scoreless while his teammates appeared to get caught coverage-wise in their own end a few too many times.

For the Kraken, a well-played first period ultimately went for naught as they yielded a goal with just four seconds remaining off a defensive zone faceoff.

Auston Matthews took that draw, immediately moved forward to seize control of the puck and then fed it out front to Mitch Marner, who completed the tic-tac-toe play by dishing to Knies for an easy goal in close.

Nylander then went to work in the second period, taking a Morgan Rielly pass uncovered to Joey Daccord’s right and easily depositing it into a vacated left side of the net.

Midway through the period, Nylander led an odd-man rush into the Kraken zone, dished the puck off to Max Pacioretty and then sneaked around the back of the net. Pacioretty’s initial shot was blocked, but John Tavares gathered in the rebound and passed the puck to Nylander – again uncovered to Daccord’s right – for another easy goal into an open left side.

Things were fairly even the rest of the way, though the Kraken only had one shot in the opening half of the final period and did little to threaten Toronto goalie Joseph Woll’s shutout bid from there until Tolvanen’s late 31-foot shot through a heavy screen.