Why Maple Leafs fans shouldn’t panic after another brutal loss

Sports

add

TORONTO — Hello there. We’re back. Good to see you again. If you’re reading this, you know that the Toronto Maple Leafs lost a big playoff game, with the other team facing elimination, and it looked like so many other similar losses over the past nine years.

The Leafs — the heavy favourites — didn’t score a goal against the Ottawa Senators this time. The stars no-showed. Some of the newer players said they seemed snake-bitten but liked how they played. The Deserve To Win O’Meter was a fan of their night.

The fans in the building, who put up a good showing throughout much of the night despite not much to cheer for, finally turned on their Leafs down 2-0 late, with the boobirds outnumbering the cheers.

It feels bleak, even with Toronto up 3-2 in the series, because, well, they’ve been here so many times before and disappointed. They are somehow 1-13 in their last 14 series-clinching games, proving about as non-clutch a team as we’ve seen not just in hockey but pro sports.

So, why shouldn’t you panic? What on earth is Mirtle up to here? Can’t he just leave us alone, to be sad in the corner for a while?

Well, I’m here to say that, no, things are not that bad. And I have three reasons why Leafs fans shouldn’t fret, including one for the optimists, one for the pessimists and one for the straight-out nihilists out there.

So pick your camp and read on.

The Leafs are (likely) still going to win this series

I know many of you are doubtful, after watching the turd that was Game 5 on Tuesday night. But let’s game theory this out a bit.

In NHL history, a team with home ice advantage has gone up 3-0 in a series 153 times. That favoured team’s record is 150-3 in those series, meaning they win the series more than 98 percent of the time.

The Leafs finished the season as the NHL’s fourth-best team, with 108 points, and they scored more goals and allowed fewer than the Senators. They’ve even outscored Ottawa 10-6 at five-on-five in this series and have one of the better power plays in the league. Plus, Anthony Stolarz has been excellent in goal all year.

Oh, and the Leafs haven’t lost four games in a row all season.

With two more chances, the Leafs should be able to eke out one win here, even if it isn’t pretty. (And it often wasn’t this season.) In fact, the oddsmakers are giving Toronto a nearly 80 percent chance of moving on to Round 2, even after this latest faceplant.

So buck up, optimists — all is not lost. They still have two chances to prove that they’ve changed.

And for you pessimists. ..

They can’t beat Florida playing like this, anyway 

Why panic if it doesn’t ultimately even matter? Am I right?

Beat Ottawa in Game 6 or Game 7, advance to the next round on minimal rest, and then the Leafs will face the defending Stanley Cup champs: A bruising, punishing team that is currently steamrolling a very good Tampa Bay Lightning club 3-1 in the Atlantic’s other series.

What chance would the Leafs — these fragile Leafs — have to beat a Florida Panthers team that has owned them for years four times in a seven-game series? Is there a realistic scenario in that matchup, given what we’ve witnessed so far in Round 1, where Toronto is the better team with the series on the line?

Maybe they can get outstanding goaltending and steal a couple games? Maybe they get a few fortunate bounces? I suppose we can twist ourselves into some sort of world where that happens. This is a funny league, parity is high and weird things happen in the NHL playoffs every year.

But how can a Leafs team built so heavily around its quartet of forwards making $47 million, a Core Four that routinely come up small in big games, possibly get through another round while playing in more important, more pressure-packed games against a much tougher opponent than the Senators?

And then do it for two more series after that?

It just doesn’t seem plausible. Or possible.

But if that’s not far enough for you, this one’s for those with no hope left at all …

If the Leafs blow this series, they’ll be blown up 

I know parts of the fan base have been calling for major organizational changes for years. Seeing the Leafs lose to Columbus in the bubble in 2020 and then drop a 3-1 series lead to the underdog Canadiens in 2021 was enough for many — and that was four long years ago.

Then, after first-round losses in 2022 (against Tampa) and last season (Boston) — and a very short, underwhelming trip to Round 2 in 2023 (Florida) — those folks hoped that maybe, finally, the core would get a facelift last summer.

Instead, the Leafs kept their president on for an 11th season and kept the Core Four for another go-round. (They even tried diligently to extend some of them throughout the course of this season.) They swapped coaches, added more grit and more veterans, and got stronger on the blue line and in goal. And a lot of it helped in the regular season, where the Leafs have rarely had significant issues.

In the end, however, if they lose this series, it will be because of the same fatal flaw that has hurt them, again and again, going back to the beginning of all of this: The Leafs’ best players have yet to be their best players in the biggest games of the year.

That’s why they lost in Game 5 on Tuesday, and in Game 7 last year, and in so many other key moments the past decade. Until they prove otherwise, it’s who they are.

The silver lining is if Toronto somehow loses these next two games to the Senators — becoming one of the only teams in pro sports history to fritter away a 3-0 series lead — it will be the end of this era for the franchise. It’ll be an emphatic exclamation point on all their failures, a final answer as to whether they should keep trying to run it back or not.

Major change will, at long last, be inevitable.

So don’t panic.

(Photo: Claus Andersen / Getty Images)

This news was originally published on this post .

Share on

email

Previous

trending_flat

2025 NFL Draft: Grading every QB selection

College & Draft

Next

trending_flat

Canelo Alvarez delivers first shot at William Scull in Saudi Arabia and shows he is in a different league

Boxing - English