Well.
The Force wasn’t with them on that one, huh?
So consider this, a free piece of advice: give some grace to the Leaf fans in your life who seem to be acting as though they’re living in a Twilight Zone episode.
They kind of are.
Another Game 7 ending in disappointment. Another dagger in the heart from the Bruins. Another season, despite individual successes, written-off as a collective waste. One more opportunity, potentially the last, for this core to change their narrative, squandered.
That last line? It may read as somewhat of an overreaction in the immediate aftermath: with Toronto's season coming to end on Saturday night by way of a 2-1 OT loss in Boston but it isn’t really out of the realm of possibility.
No. Not anymore.
Over the coming days, weeks, months, no doubt we’ll begin to see the bigger picture, the next steps, “the plan”, more clearly.
We’ll break down these past seven games down to the minute detail as well, as we do, looking for explanations, rationalizations and maybe a few excuses as the Leafs head to the golf course - right on schedule, too.
But right now, in this moment, it simply doesn’t seem feasible. To give it another shot, wholesale and to expect anything different.
Again.
Oh, look at that.
I said the same thing, in a few more words, almost a year ago to the day last season - when, after finally clearing their first-round hurdle, the Leafs promptly flamed out in the second round.
But the clock is ticking and not just on the NHL Draft, some six weeks away.
No, the clock is ticking on this era of Leafs hockey, on the prime of their stars, on the patience of an exhausted, frustrated fanbase, on the notion that simply “running it back” will produce a more conclusive result.
Yeah, talk about just copy-and-pasting your angst. Leafs fandom: it can be the worst kind of déjà vu.
The reality is, this Leafs core, led by Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, have seen eight years together already. Team President Brendan Shanahan and his once highly-touted “Shanaplan”, even longer, with Shanahan having been at the helm for just over a decade now (being hired in the role in April of 2014).
Ten years, carrying into every fall, a renewed sense of optimism.
With just one playoff series win to show for it. Their “Core Four”, making a collective $40+ million alone.
$40 million. For four players. And having made it to the second round only once.
They’ve already fired one coach, in Mike Babcock and moved on from two general managers (Lou Lamoriello and Kyle Dubas).
It shouldn’t surprise anyone if we’ve seen the last of Sheldon Keefe behind the bench or Shanahan in the press box, as GM Brad Treliving looks to more fully put his stamp on the team (Shanahan is out of his purview but not that of new MLSE CEO, Keith Pelley).
But to make the big, reactionary and frankly, probably a little cathartic move of, at the very least, shuffling around the core group, it bares to keep in mind that, despite the frustration, it doesn’t come without risk.
On paper and still, when they click, this group, as a whole, are perhaps the most talented the franchise has ever had.
Even if, for many, that simply won’t be enough anymore.
Auston Matthews, for one, isn’t going anywhere. Although that goes without saying. Despite sitting out two games with a yet to be disclosed aliment, he deserves some credit for gutting it out in the deciding game - but props alone aren’t really going to cut here. He is the team’s MVP, the lynchpin, the focus, the to-be highest paid player in the sport come October.
With all due respect to serious health concerns, you need him to step-up more forcefully here.
William Nylander too, should be safe.
For years, he was the perennial whipping boy following Toronto’s playoff disappointments but he elevated his game to another level this season, defensive shortcomings be dammed, becoming a leader that the vocal minority thought he never would be.
Yes, they didn’t get it done but Nylander shouldn’t shoulder that blame - he scored twice in Game 6 and was Toronto’s lone goal scorer in Game 7. Criticize him all you want - but he delivered.
His viral moment on the bench during Game 4, highlights this, as he openly called out his teammates, Matthews and Marner both. And even if your lip reading isn’t quite up to snuff, well, it isn’t that hard to put two-and-two together.
But it also speaks to something less certain - what of the rest?
Matthew Knies was solid throughout, building off an impressive rookie year and Joesph Woll brought the Leafs back from the brink, winning two straight games in net but you couldn’t shake his absence on Saturday, from an undisclosed injury.
And while Ilya Samsonov was great throughout nearly all of Game 7, redeeming his shakier play earlier in the series, he is still the last line of defense… and couldn’t shut the door when it mattered most.
Mitch Marner and John Tavares, most notably? Well, they’re a more complex discussion.
Both are set to be free agents in 2025 but also have full NMCs, controlling their potential fate, should such a subject, no longer as scandalous as it once was, be broached: trading at least one of them and hoping it sends a jolt, a push, throughout the room.
And despite the pitchforks currently being primed, again, there are multiple factors to consider here. They’re both terrific players, Marner, an offensive dynamo with Selke-nominated two-way ability… but his weak showing against Boston (just three points) is an easy target for the trade rumours that have been circling him for a while now.
And Tavares, at 33, may be the team’s captain and still an effective contributor but there was the hope, the expectation, that in granting him such a massive contract in 2018 (and in hamstringing the cap in the process) that he’d be the leader Toronto needed to take that next, important step.
Not yet, not quite, maybe no more.
The Maple Leafs having grown, once more, lackadaisical. Stagnant.
Complacent.
And don’t misunderstand. I’ll still be there, cheering them on, throughout all the ups-and-downs. At this point, it is hardwired into my DNA.
But it seems clearer than it has ever been.
No longer are we talking about young players, an untested group, still needing to find their way. We’ve been doing that for almost ten years now.
The Leafs will do something this summer. They must. If only to maximize Matthews’ prime, to bring themselves ever closer to that elusive championship. There was promise here. It isn’t working.
That much, is obvious.