Referring to his team’s season-ending game 7 loss to the Montreal Canadiens, Toronto Maple Leafs’ forward Zach Hyman was quoted as saying, “It’s the most heartbreaking out of all of them.” If you, dear reader, are not familiar with the sad history of the Toronto hockey club, you may be asking yourself, ‘What is the ‘them’ is Hyman referring to? It would seem that he was just commenting on the outcome of a single disappointing series outcome.” Those who follow hockey, however, know that this first-round bow-out is just the latest in a long line of Maple Leafs choke jobs; thus, “them” refers to this slew of ignominious defeats.
Before briefly summarizing Toronto’s sad 21st-Century history, I begin with this shameful factoid: the last time that the Maple Leafs won the Stanley Cup was over a half-century ago, in 1967. The last time that they won just a playoff series was in 2004, almost 20 years ago –a time when many of the players on the current roster were still in diapers. Then, from 2006-2014, the team missed the playoffs entirely, no mean feat in a league that sees over half of the teams qualify (16 out of 30). Missing the playoffs might not be as bad as what happened to the Leafs in 2013, however. The Leafs lost in the first round to one of their oldest rivals: the Boston Bruins. “What’s so bad about a first-round loss?”, you may ask. It is the fashion in which they lost that made it so painful. The Maple Leafs had won two straight games to bring the series to a deciding game 7, so it actually looked like the Bruins might be the team in danger of fumbling away the series when all of a sudden, in a span of two minutes in the 3rd period of that game, the Bruins scored three goals to even the score up at 4-all and send the game into OT. “Fortunately” for Toronto fans, Bruins center Patrice Bergeron scored the golden goal only six minutes and five seconds into overtime, officially putting them out of their misery.
What followed were three more years of missing the playoffs (2014-2016), chased down by three straight years of first-round exits: the Washington Capitals did the honors in six games in 2017, and old nemesis Boston eliminated them in seven games the next two years. In 2020, the team again missed the playoffs, losing in the qualifying round to the Columbus Blue Jackets (a team who had never won a playoff series until the year before.) Again, though, what happened in 2021 might make Toronto fans yearn for the years when their team didn’t make the playoffs, as they were spared the excruciating heartbreak which their team subjected them to, instead only feeling the relatively mild disappointment of their team ending their season with a playoff-less whimper.
To pick up where this article left off, let’s get back to the first-round series that the Maple Leafs played against the Canadiens this year. The heavily-favored Maple Leafs were the number one seed (winners of the Northern Division, they had a regular-season record of 35 wins and 14 losses), while the Canadiens, who had a regular-season record of 24 wins and 21 losses, were seeded fourth. Montreal didn’t even qualify for the playoffs until the last day of the season, barely scraping by with the one point received from their tie against the Edmonton Oilers (they went on to lose in overtime). The series went the full seven games, but don’t give the Leafs any brownie points for that; that the series went the limit only adds to the Leafs’ shame, as they were up, three games to one, before a total collapse saw them drop the final three.
In the interest of fairness, it should be pointed out that the Maple Leafs did have to play the series without captain John Tavares (concussion, knee) and also lost defenseman Jake Muzzin (suspected groin injury) in the first period of game 6. That said, the loss of one star player for the entirety of the series and the loss of another starter for the final two games hardly provides an adequate excuse for blowing the series. At this point in the season, what team is at full strength? The Canadiens were in better shape, health-wise, only lacking Jonathan Drouin, who left the team on April 22 for personal reasons which have not been reported in the media but all things considered, the Leafs were clearly the stronger team from a talent standpoint and should have taken the series.
To get philosophical in an “is the glass half-full or half-empty” sense, should the Canadiens be praised for an amazing comeback or should the Maple Leafs be excoriated for squandering such a commanding series lead? I believe that Toronto’s recent history of abject failure should cast this series in a light that illuminates the Leafs as chronic losers and choke-artists. It’s not as if the players on this current Leafs team don’t know this and aren’t feeling the pain: defenseman Morgan Reilly said, “It’s as hard as it gets. The goals are higher than what we achieved. It makes the disappointment much worse.” Superstar center Auston Matthews, the NHL’s goal-scoring leader in the regular season, called his team’s first-round exit, “extremely frustrating.” I’m sure this frustration was shared by Toronto fans who witnessed Matthews’ disappearing act during the series, as he scored only one goal in the seven games. Even for a team with such a startling history of recent failures, this screw-up was historical: it was only the second time in their 104-year history that they lost a game 7 on home ice.
With so much playoff heartbreak in the books, it would be reasonable to ask when the patience of the fan base will run out. (The same could be said for the Edmonton Oilers, who were the clear favorites against the Jets, only to be swept by them in the first round.) How much more losing will Toronto stars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner put up with? It’s only a matter of time before these two players ask to be traded, if things continue this way. Leafs GM Kyle Dubas, though, has made it clear that Matthews, Marner, and the rest of the core aren’t going anywhere. Leafs’ president Brendan Shanahan has furthermore, expressed confidence in the loyalty of the Leafs’ talented core: “They’re special players and they’re all deeply, deeply committed to winning here in Toronto and it’s important for us as a management group to continue to develop them.” So it looks like there won’t be any imminent changes to the current roster. However, if the frustration continues to build, those big names could force the hand of management and make the situation untenable. Perhaps winger Mitch Marner, in summing up the series, was on-target in describing the state of the franchise itself when he used the word “crappy”’.
