Leafs appear headed for exit, along with their coach
WITH SEASON ON THE LINE AGAINST BOSTON, TORONTO ONCE AGAIN COMES OUT FLAT AT HOME
Sheldon Keefe is running out of time as coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
But the truth is, maybe no one could take these overpaid and underproductive playoff players and make them into a post-season team of consequence.
It was that bad for the Leafs on Saturday in Game 4 of their playoff series against the Boston Bruins.
It was that lifeless, that disappointing.
The only real fight the Leafs showed was on their own bench — with Auston Matthews and William Nylander sniping at Mitch Marner, who reacted to the jawing by throwing his gloves. It was just about the most emotion the Leafs showed in a must-win game and that by itself is rather sad.
Because there is a certain consistency with this Leaf team: They don’t rise to the occasion.
They don’t turn home ice advantage into any kind of advantage. Too often, they lack desperation and urgency, and sometimes, too often in this playoff series and others in the past, they seem to lack emotion.
And where does that come from? From the players? From the preparation? From the game plan? From the coach? From the organization? From a combination of all five?
Whatever it is, this isn’t new for the Leafs with Keefe as coach and before Keefe was coach.
It’s a Leafs story that won’t go away until the Leafs rewrite it themselves.
Keefe was the coach when the Leafs lost to Columbus in a five-game series. He was the coach when they couldn’t close out against the Montreal Canadiens in the franchise’s best Stanley Cup opportunity in decades. He was the coach in the playoff losses to Tampa Bay and Florida, the Panthers series not unlike this round with the Boston Bruins.
The main players haven’t changed, but the roster has been tweaked each and every year. Still, the main problem has existed throughout — they don’t play playoff hockey. The highest scoring team in the Eastern Conference has scored 21 goals in its last 11 playoff games. Less than two goals a game. With Matthews, Marner and Nylander leading the way.
There is a feeling at almost every home playoff game in almost every NHL arena. There is a loud and emotional buzz to the night. An excitement with anticipation brewing. The crowd makes the players faster, braver, more physical, more energized.
Getting through the first minutes of any playoff game on the road is always a test. Just not here. Not in Toronto. Not with this Leafs team.
They began Saturday playing cautiously and lacking fire. This was not about a crowd not being loud enough: This was about a team being too silent to engage a crowd so hoping to play along.
It was only after trailing 3-0 to start the third, with Auston Matthews in the dressing room for the last stanza, with Joseph Woll in goal instead of Ilya Samsonov, that the Leafs showed any kind of life.
But that took two periods. At home?
“I didn’t think we came out flat,” Morgan Rielly said. “Our season is on the line.”
He said it’s on the line. That’s the kind of thing you say when the cameras and notebooks are in front of you.
You say what you think others will want to hear. The words mean nothing, though. Actions mean everything. And there wasn’t enough action Saturday.
What did the Leafs do better than the Bruins in Game 4? Answer: nothing.
Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak were huge for Boston. They are the stars of the Bruins.
Matthews, who has had one giant game in the series thus far — the only game the Leafs have won — didn’t play the third. He was feeling ill and played like it until the doctors ended his night.
Captain John Tavares has been outscored in the series 8-1 by captain Marchand.
Marner came alive in the third period to score a goal, but it was way too late to come back.
Nylander looked like someone who had been out for more than a week; his hands and his feet didn’t always seem in sync and having Keefe anchor him on a line with Pontus Holmberg and Calle Jarnkrok, which is a lot like asking Fred Astaire to dance with Wilma Flintstone.
So what now in this eighth season of Matthews, Marner and Nylander? What now in this fifth season of Keefe? What now for a team that comes up short each and every April and May, with a first-year GM and a team president in his 10th season?
The Leafs were shouting at each other on the bench, which means they must care, they just have a strange way of showing it.
So, what was wrong? “It’s hard to say,” Keefe said, “hard to pinpoint … we looked a little tight.”
And then he added: “Don’t question our effort.”
He said that with a straight face. He said it in all honesty. He said it as another season is on brink and he has to be wondering if this season is his last.