The Toronto Maple Leafs have seen this film earlier than, and the ending by no means modifications. One other Sport 7. One other crushing loss to finish one other season that began with a lot promise, hype and hope.
This time it was an emphatic 6-1 loss to the Florida Panthers on Sunday which may lastly result in sweeping modifications to the Maple Leafs’ core.
For Florida, it is going to be its third consecutive journey to the Japanese Convention Remaining, with a possible third consecutive journey to the Stanley Cup Remaining on the road.
For Toronto, it is simply extra continued mediocrity for a core group of gamers — and a franchise — that has now develop into outlined by it.
It ought to end in sweeping modifications this offseason. Nothing ought to be left off the desk because it pertains to each pending free brokers and gamers nonetheless underneath contract.
It is not simply that the Maple Leafs have did not win a Stanley Cup with Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander.
That may be forgivable, and maybe even comprehensible.
Championships are laborious, uncommon and require an immense mixture of expertise, depth, manufacturing and luck all coming collectively on the similar time. There isn’t any disgrace in not successful a championship over any nine-year run. You are not assured one, irrespective of how a lot expertise you could have.
The unacceptable half is that in 9 seasons, the closest this group has come to a championship is roughly 40% of the way in which to at least one.
It takes 16 playoff wins to carry the Stanley Cup. Essentially the most this group has ever received is seven. The second most is 5. In seven of these years, they by no means received greater than three.
That may’t occur.
It could’t preserve occurring.
Throughout this run, the Maple Leafs have made modifications to their complementary gamers. They’ve modified head coaches a number of occasions. Basic managers have modified.
The one constants which have remained have been their core 4 of Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander. And one of the crucial frequent denominators in these playoff shortcomings is a scarcity of offense from that group when the video games matter probably the most.
The offense at all times fails them in Video games 5-7 of the collection, and this season was no exception. After leaping out to a 2-0 collection lead, the Maple Leafs misplaced 4 of the subsequent 5 video games, scoring solely eight targets within the course of. They scored simply 4 targets over the ultimate 4 video games, with the “core 4” accounting for only one of them.
How do you retain bringing them again time and again?
The Maple Leafs have delay making modifications to the core lengthy sufficient. They cannot put it off anymore.
Marner and Tavares are already scheduled to be unrestricted free brokers after this season. Given Tavares’ age, it might make sense to let him go.
You additionally need to ask if they will afford to speculate $12M-14M in Marner, given the spottiness of his playoff manufacturing and what number of zeroes he has posted in large video games.
As loopy because it could be to recommend, Matthews should not be untouchable both, given that he’s the captain and has by no means taken over a playoff collection (and even many video games) on his personal, regardless of his Sport 7 feedback.
