Toronto Maple Leafs' Tyler Bertuzzi leaves the ice between John Tavares, centre, and Morgan Rielly, right, after the team lost to the Boston Bruins in overtime during Game 7 of the first of the Stanley Cup Playoffs in Boston, on May 4.Michael Dwyer/The Associated Press
At some point the Maple Leafs have to stop doing the same thing and expect different results. They hoped again that their core players would carry them on a postseason run. Other than William Nylander, who scored three goals in four games, they were pretty much a dud.
Auston Matthews had one goal in five games against Boston while sick and hampered by an injury. Mitch Marner was a non-factor unless one sees him as a negative. He scored once in seven games and a poor defensive play contributed to the Bruins’ winning goal in overtime on Saturday. John Tavares is a battler but also netted only one. Morgan Rielly was shut out and was also burned by David Pastrnak for the 2-1 winner.
Neither Marner nor Rielly addressed journalists after Game 7 in a morgue of a dressing room.
It is always easier to look at a glass as half-full. Yes, Toronto rallied from a 3-1 disadvantage and took the first-round playoff series to seven games. Yes, the Maple Leafs probably ended it by putting together their three best performances of the 2023-24 campaign.
It is easy to say this team is different from all the others that failed in the past. The truth is that it was not. It still lost. Its offence dried up. Its power play vanished. It ended up on the wrong side of the handshake line again. That is the glass half-empty.
Sheldon Keefe’s teams have had a remarkable record – 212-97-40 – in his five seasons as the head coach. But come playoff time they step on a rake and smack themselves in the face time and again. They have managed to win just one of six postseason series.
In the aftermath of the latest failure he talked about how it came down to the thinnest of margins. He praised the players for putting up a fight in tough circumstances. Still they were unable to make any sort of run in the playoffs. They have won one round in their past nine attempts.
“We’ve tried to break through for a long time here now,” Keefe said. “Any answer I give is going to fall on deaf ears and I get that. All I will say is that the group pulled together in a way this last week and through this season. I thought we showed signs that this team will win.”
There is the wall. Knock your head against it a few more times. Does it hurt any less?
Toronto limited the Bruins to four goals in the final three games but still checked out of the postseason early. There is no trophy awarded for that. It lost in sudden death when Pastrnak burst past Marner and Rielly and tucked a backhand around Ilya Samsonov.
The latter had his best game of the series. He stopped 30 of 32 shots but got deked on the winner.
“It’s tough to talk right now,” Samsonov said afterward. “The season is over for us. We did a good job to get the series back to Boston for a Game 7. I don’t know what to say more than that. It’s just tough. It’s hard to end the season like that.”
The series was not necessarily great hockey but it was extremely competitive and that makes it seem great. In the end it came down to a few things: A power-play unit that went 1-for-21. An offence that has gone 14 consecutive playoff games without more than three goals. And then a crucial mistake.
“When teams play the Leafs, they set up the game for the Leafs to beat themselves,” Keefe said.
First, ouch, and then of course they did it again. A battle that looked heroic ended in a predictable result.
Hard decisions await Keith Pelley, the new president and CEO of Maple Leafs Sports and Entertainment. Will Brendan Shanahan be retained as the organization’s president and alternate governor? He has spent 10 years in the position and not a lot has changed.
Does Keefe get fired?
Does Mitch Marner get made so miserable that he waives his no-trade clause? Are T.J. Brodie and Mark Giordano brought back despite advancing age and flat-lined results? Is Tavares even in the picture when his contract expires in 2025?
My guess is that there will be a shakeup, one that is long overdue. The Maple Leafs are the NHL’s poster boys for try, try again.
Marty Klinkenberg