It's getting too deep into the season now to dismiss the Blue Jackets' sloppy puck play and their propensity for lopsided losses as merely aberrations.

Another embarrassing loss on par with the 9-1 Detroit debacle last month took place tonight in Nationwide Arena, which was mostly empty and booing when the final buzzer sounded.

A 6-3 loss to the "rebuilding" Toronto Maple Leafs before 13,825 was the latest kick in the groin, and it wasn't as close as the score might seem.

"We have to get this fixed," defenseman Fedor Tyutin said, "before it's too late."

The Maple Leafs led 2-0 midway through the first period, and 6-1 early in the third period. But those are just the short-term ugly numbers.

The Blue Jackets have allowed six or more goals in seven of their 28 games, or 25 percent. Goaltender Steve Mason was pulled at 10:55 of the second period for the fourth time in 22 starts, although this yank, like two of the others, wasn't entirely on Mason.

"It's especially embarrassing to lose like this at home," Blue Jackets winger R.J. Umberger said. "Last year, we fought hard and competed like crazy to be a competitive team, a playoff team. The respect we got from our fans was incredible. They really bought into us.

"I have to think that right now we're just letting them down. It's frustrating for them, for sure. They're paying good money at a tough time (economically) to come watch us, and there have been too many bad performances here at home."

The Leafs went up 1-0 only 4:32 into the game when Blue Jackets defenseman Mike Commodore and Mason momentarily bumbled the puck in the goal mouth. It kicked out to Toronto's Phil Kessel, who fired it under Mason's pad.

At 11:10 of the first, Tyutin made an agregious turnover behind the Blue Jackets net, gift-wrapping the puck for Toronto's Lee Stempniak, who buried it from the doorstep.

The Blue Jackets made it 2-1 at 4:48 of the second period on a power play goal by winger Kristian Huselius, but the Leafs pushed the margin back to two goals only 77 seconds later. Jason Blake finished off a 3-on-2 break with a tap in off a Matt Stajan feed.

"I think I have to take responsibility for the way we played today," Blue Jackets coach Ken Hitchcock said. "We talked hard about the way we need to play, but it didn't hit home hard enough until it was too late.

"The perfect example was the 3-1 goal. We stick-handled it into the middle of the ice, gave them an odd-man rush and all of a sudden it's 3-1 and we're chasing it again."

Hitchcock was clearly not happy. One player said he voiced his displeasure during both intermissions and after the game.

With the Blue Jackets on the power play in the final five minutes, Hitchcock pulled Rick Nash, Anton Stralman, Huselius, Umberger and Tyutin off the power play units, replacing them with the likes of Mike Blunden, Mathieu Roy, Alexandre Picard, Sammy Pahlsson, etc.

Hejda scored the first power play goal of his career with 2:40 remaining.

Asked if he was sending a message, Hitchcock said: "Yeah."

"We don't do a good job of managing the puck at times," Hitchcock said. "It's like we have to bump our head against the wall before we do it.

"Tonight was just careless. It was careless."

aportzline@dispatch.com