Mirtle: Why Maple Leafs’ Game 5 loss might be their worst one yet

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TORONTO — There was nothing to like here. No redeeming qualities. No silver linings.

Everyone was bad. Everyone knew it stunk. The fans booed throughout the game — at least the few thousand who didn’t get up and leave early, despite paying some of the highest ticket prices in pro sports. One threw the captain’s jersey on the ice.

Even by Toronto Maple Leafs standards, it set a high mark for futility.

“Flush it down the toilet,” was Mitch Marner’s advice for how to move past an ugly 6-1 loss to the Florida Panthers in Game 5 that feels like it probably ended their season. Team president Brendan Shanahan might want to make sure the plunger is handy, though, as even the franchise’s overburdened bad-game john might reject this offering.

For the first time all season, ever-unflappable head coach Craig Berube sounded somewhat shell-shocked when he met with the press after the game. His team had a chance to take control of the series and put the defending champs on the ropes, going up 3-2 in the series with Game 7 available, if necessary, at home.

Instead, the Leafs totally no-showed in one of the organization’s most important games in decades.

“Yeah, it’s hard to explain it,” Berube said. “We all got to be better. Myself included. We can’t start the game that way. That’s the big thing for me — sets the tone for the game.

“I don’t have an answer for you for why. It’s sports. Things happen.”

So, Berube is new here. And sometimes it shows. After decades of playing, coaching and living in the United States, he can be somewhat forgiven for not following along with every postseason disaster up here in Toronto.

Unfortunately, for those who have watched it all unfold over the last nine years, it’s not that hard to explain what happened at Scotiabank Arena on Wednesday night. The “why” behind what was one of the most lopsided playoff losses in franchise history — only a late, meaningless Nick Robertson goal prevented them from losing by six in the postseason for the first time in 37 years — is not a great mystery because we’ve seen it so many times.

This team has not lost 13 elimination games with this core group by happenstance. They’ve lost them because their top players consistently disappear at the most vital time of the year.

It’s like Groundhog Day, but in May. All that’s missing at this point is Bill Murray holding a toaster to cap off their season. Or maybe he should be driving an 18-wheeler off a cliff with a screaming woodchuck in his lap?

It’s to the point that one of the debates that started to unfold at the arena among the media gathered to chronicle another implosion was whether this loss was worse than other brutal showings in years past.

I would argue that yes, this ranks right up there with the worst of them all.

Sergei Bobrovsky denies William Nylander on the breakaway to set the tone for Game 5. (John E. Sokolowski / Imagn Images)

You could point to what happened in 2020, when they lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets in five games in that weird pandemic season where more teams made the playoffs than normal. Or in 2021, in blowing a 3-1 series lead to a not-very-good Montreal Canadiens team in the first round. Or maybe one of the Game 7s they blew against the Boston Bruins or Tampa Bay Lightning?

But the reason this one is worse — assuming, as most rational folks are, that the series is over — is there are absolutely zero excuses here.

The Leafs core has grown up. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander have all played nine seasons and 600-plus games in this league, piled up points, won major awards and lost in the playoffs, again and again. They are not, by NHL standards, young men anymore. They are veterans leading one of the most veteran-laden teams in the league.

They also have the best supporting cast around them they’ve ever had, with a deep, hard-nosed blue line and a capable goaltender.

None of their core players are hurt or absent, like what happened with Tavares against Montreal or Nylander last season. The opposing goalie isn’t standing on his head and saving everything. They aren’t getting unfortunate breaks or bad luck.

They’re just plain bad. So bad that even the team’s most ardent followers, the blue-and-white faithful who paid thousands of dollars to see their heroes here in what was close to a must-win game, could see it almost right away.

Their team didn’t have it. So the fans let them have it.

Maybe the Leafs aren’t blowing a 3-1 series lead against a weak opponent here, but is a deeper, more experienced group frittering away a 2-0 series lead — and a 3-1 lead in Game 3 — and ending up here any upgrade? After trading away two first-round picks and multiple prospects to reinforce this group at the deadline, giving them every opportunity to finally deliver? With two of their top players set to become unrestricted free agents and walk for nothing on July 1?

That’s about as dire as it gets.

Consider, too, that NHL teams that take a 2-0 series lead at home win the series roughly 90 percent of the time. Teams that get up 3-1 in games like Toronto did last Friday close their opponents out 82 percent of the time.

The Leafs should have been up 3-0 in this series, by holding onto Game 3’s lead and closing it out the way they did all season. Or at the very least they should have won one of the last two games. That they didn’t pull off a single win over the last three outings, under those circumstances, is inexcusable — especially given they didn’t even play with a pulse the last two games.

At this point, however, it’s just more fodder for the collapse pile they’ve been building for years. And we’re just picking through the ashes and looking for meaning when there’s probably not a whole lot more to learn about this group.

Barring a truly miraculous comeback, there’s going to be plenty of time to get into the full eulogy of this team — of this core group — next week when this series is over. At this point, however, I’m not sure many members of the fan base are even going to show up for the funeral. You can tell they’ve already moved onto what’s next, as they hope and pray for meaningful changes.

No one wants to watch reruns of their least favorite show anymore.

(Top photo of linesman Jesse Marquis picking a fan jersey off the ice: Steve Russell / Toronto Star via Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

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