From the first line’s incongruity to the fourth line’s injuries, it has been an uneven start to this Maple Leafs season.

While Toronto survived its season opener against Montreal, a 6-3 loss in Detroit on Saturday — with the final score inflated by two empty-net goals — showed some training camp concerns still aren’t fixed. Our takeaways:

GET IT TOGETHER

Coach Craig Berube usually gets his chemistry experiments right, but the pre-season loss of Scott Laughton continues to have adverse effects.

Matias Maccelli is still looking to fit with Auston Matthews and Matthew Knies, or any line really, complicated Saturday by Steven Lorentz’s apparent head injury that led to more juggling through the forward chains. Lorentz will be re-evaluated on Sunday, Berube told media in Detroit.

Maccelli, who might have been better off starting on the planned third line with Nicolas Roy and Dakota Joshua before the Laughton misadventure, had no shots or attempts on Saturday.

“The more reps we get, the more game situations, the more comfortable we will be together,” Matthews insisted of his line on Friday.

Matthews had six on net versus the Wings, plus a loud miss off the bar, and is stuck on one empty net goal. A Leaf power play that echoes last year’s early struggles is not helping him.

We’d been curious to see how William Nylander looked in that prime right-wing spot 5-on-5, which would be the ultimate Plan B if all other attempts to replace Mitch Marner fail, but Saturday was too small a sample size.

There was some flat-footed play all around that kept the puck in Toronto’s zone far too long.

The good news is Max Domi, the original first-line right side auditioner, is doing fine in his shift to the middle and nearly had a highlight goal to tie it.

“A big part of it is up in your brain,” Berube had said before his team’s game against Detroit as to what wasn’t working 5-on-5 across the board. “The other one is execution. We have to make harder plays in critical situations. I’m not talking about putting the puck on somebody’s tape, it’s getting it out of our zone, getting it deep.”

EASTON STANDARD TIME

Either the Lorentz injury or desire to change things up should see Berube insert winger Easton Cowan on Monday afternoon in the Scotiabank Arena rematch against Detroit in his National Hockey League debut.

The friendly confines of a home game with many family and friends should help Cowan get past any nerves, though there’s some pressure on the top prospect from London now that the whole team has something to show after being out-hustled by the Wings.

Where Cowan would fit in Monday is also intriguing, given Calle Jarnkrok has scored in back-to-back games as Cowan’s fourth-line replacement after Laughton and then Lorentz went down.

At this rate Jarnkrok, who had one goal last season, will reach his career high of 20 as a Leaf in 2022-23. Yet he didn’t come in from the cold at camp until Laughton was hurt and a new fourth line was formed with Nicolas Roy (two points Saturday) at centre.

GIVE AND TAKE

Berube was rightly concerned about some of his players standing around watching in their zone, which led to the Wings pressuring Toronto into goals.

What magnifies that through two games so far is the Leafs have been in double figures in giveaways with scant takeaways to counter that stat.

Even the reliable Anthony Stolarz was guilty of a blind pass behind his net that was nearly converted by the Wings, though he still made 20 saves before the game was half-completed to keep his team in it.

Toronto now embarks on five straight home games, with a few full practices that Berube must use to streamline Toronto’s largesse with pucks.

Lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby