Once again on Sunday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs proved that they are not a hockey franchise. They’re a kink.
They are a pain generator that you strap yourself into every year just to see how high you can go before it becomes unbearable. On Sunday night, the Leafs took it up past 11.
A lot of that was the anticipation. For two weeks, Toronto stood and slugged with the best big-game hockey team in the world. Some nights, they were even better.
In Game 5, Toronto turned in possibly its worst performance of the year. Everybody gave up on them then.
But in Game 6 in Sunrise, the Leafs were the group their biggest fanboys say they can be. Hard-minded, lasered in, depending on and not being disappointed by their biggest stars. All they needed to do was the same thing once again.
Instead, the Leafs came out on Sunday something worse than flat. You could’ve slid them onto the ice under a closed door.
Maple Leafs out of NHL playoffs after losing 6-1 to Panthers in Game 7
Yet despite being comprehensively outplayed, they didn’t crack in the first period. They even managed to come on near the end of it. It was 0-0 after 20 minutes. Almost every Leaf on the bench skated out to tap goalie Joseph Woll’s pads before they headed to the locker room. He’d saved their year.
That’s when you knew that the Leafs’ bad juju was finally dissipating. Twenty-five years of big moment clangers, shocking giveaways, sure-thing leads blown and goalies who couldn’t stop a rolling car tire – that was over. The Leafs were in a game that mattered, against a superior team, not at their best, but they had been lucky. That had to mean something.
Then the second period started and the Leafs were even worse. Per Sportsnet stats, they allowed 75 shot attempts in the first two frames. No team had done that for the entirety of the 2024-25 season.
Toronto Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube was at a loss for words when asked how his team could come up flat in two straight home games against the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers.
The Canadian Press
Every Florida move caused confusion verging on panic in the Leafs ranks. Once the Panthers got it into the Leafs end, the puck was stuck there forever.
It was 3-0 Florida in what seemed like a single three movement action -- all goals of declining believability.
The first, a remarkable Seth Jones shot over Woll’s shoulder, after looking him off like Tom Brady.
The second off a mistake from Woll – a shot bouncing off the inside of his glove, landing directly in front of Anton Lundell.
The third a farce that seemed to start on an uncalled offside and ended up bundled into the net by Florida’s fourth line.
Shortly after that that backbreaker, Scotiabank Arena Game Ops began to pick out members of the MLSE family sitting in the stands – TFC players and third-tier Raptors – and asking the crowd to cheer for them. The audience replied with baffled silence. This was the moment of greatest farce – a Jerry Lewis Loserthon happening in Pleasantville, Ont., a city that just doesn’t get it.
As the period ended, the audience turned on the Leafs, showering them in jeers. Cameras caught Mitch Marner throwing a snit at his own bench, screaming at his teammates to “wake up” but in more profane terms.
If that was Marner’s last memorable moment as a Leaf, it would be thematically consistent. He always seemed to pop up when things were bad, so that he could make them a little worse.
When Florida made it 5-1 midway through the third, the jerseys started hitting the ice. One of them was thrown while play was ongoing.
The PA announcer reminded the audience that there could be criminal penalties for throwing things. Another jersey went over the glass.
The last seven or eight minutes dragged on for an hour. Brad Marchand scored an empty netter. It is clear now that his witchcraft had something to do with this. In retrospect, the Leafs ought to have traded for him at the deadline. Even if they had to promise to sit him for the entire playoffs. Anything to avoid playing against him.
“I don’t think the moment’s too big for them,” first-year head coach Craig Berube said. “For me, it’s all between the ears. I don’t have an answer for that – Why?”
Does Berube have an internet hookup at home? Does he not read the hockey news occasionally? Because that he is just figuring this out now would be very Toronto.
There was also the vacuous annual locker room ritual of hushed voices and sad looks.
Auston Matthews broke protocol by saying something interesting – referring to “too many passengers” in Sunday’s game. If he could translate some of that venom onto the ice, the Leafs could eventually have themselves one hell of a playoff performer. Any year now.
As he turned to leave, you saw the logo on the back of Matthews’s T-shirt: “No grit. No grind. No greatness.” He scored one goal in the series.
John Tavares was ashen. Morgan Rielly was thoughtful. Marner was detached. Seven years is a long time to learn your roles. The key Leafs have them down by heart.
Somewhere in there, there was the usual blizzard of excuses dressed up as apologies and rhetorical questions – “Clearly, there’s growth we need to have”; “Disappointing. Accept responsibility. Not good enough”; “I don’t know how everything got away from us”; “I felt like we were ready to play.”
“We had a great year,” said Marner. “Everything was going great.”
Like I said, a kink. You may think you’re vanilla, but you’re not. What you are is a Leafs fan.