Judgment night for Leafs
Game 7 will be a referendum on the franchise, even if that isn’t fair
In early April, the Toronto Maple Leafs went to Philadelphia and won a hockey game the way they so often have: so-so effort, some bursts of brilliance, get out of town. Head coach Sheldon Keefe wasn’t happy, but he was philosophical.
“I would say disappointing for sure, but not concerning, in the sense that I know what our team’s capable of doing,” said Keefe. “Perhaps that’s maybe the problem: they know what they’re capable of doing.”
That has been the blessing and the curse of this franchise era. The Leafs are capable of a lot of things, but only some of them come to pass.
Thursday night, Toronto had a chance to eliminate the Tampa Bay Lightning, and it was a second straight classic. In Game 5, the Leafs delivered. In Game 6 in Tampa, Toronto had a whole lot of chances to win and they didn’t, and lost 4-3 in overtime. So it’s Game 7, again.
And the Leafs can win. No, they haven’t done it in this open elevator shaft of an era. The Leafs are 1-9 when leading a playoff series, and 0-8 with a chance to advance. Boston, Boston, Boston, Columbus, Montreal, Montreal, Montreal, and now Tampa. Pessimism, for Leafs fans, has been earned.
But Toronto can win. This isn’t the asymmetry that you saw when the Leafs lost in six tight games to a Presidents’ Trophy Washington team, or even in seven games to more durable Boston teams. This isn’t a repeat of Columbus in an empty arena when the puck wouldn’t go in and Keefe blamed bad luck, or the rolling collapse against Montreal.
No, this is a different, fascinating crucible: the best Leafs team in the era by miles, and the two-time defending champs. This was always going to be hard. Forget Alex Killorn holding onto Auston Matthews’s jersey in overtime like a remora on a shark, and forget the phantom high-sticking call on David Kämpf that was compounded by the high-sticking call on Alex Kerfoot that led to the tying goal. Forget all of Toronto’s chances in overtime.
The Leafs played their butts off. They came back from a 2-0 deficit,
had a chance to eliminate the Lightning on the road in a Game 6, and were the better team in overtime against what is sometimes the best goalie in the world. They didn’t freeze, didn’t wilt, didn’t play perfectly and couldn’t quite put it away. They just lost.
So now Game 7 will be a referendum on this franchise, even if that isn’t fair.
For years, team president Brendan Shanahan and general manager Kyle Dubas have preached patience. Drafting Matthews — and to a lesser but still significant extent, Mitch Marner and William Nylander and Morgan Rielly — meant the plan was to build and sustain a rolling championship window. Dubas paid out big contracts, added John Tavares — who had a tough night punctuated by two sudden goals — and built around the core, swapping out parts like an F1 team around the engine.
And on the balance, Dubas has done a pretty tremendous job. You might disagree with his philosophical hockey choices, or some of the decisions on the way. But the process of the Maple Leafs has been very, very good.
Still, you have to actually do it. There would be no shame to losing to Tampa Bay in the playoffs: the Lightning haven’t lost a series in two years, or back-to-back playoff games since 2019. Of course this series is going seven. It will feel apocalyptic and hopeful and god knows what else, and even if the Leafs don’t fall into that strange fugue state they have sometimes entered under pressure — though it doesn’t feel like they will, this time — this series is such that Toronto could play like demons and get unlucky, or get out-goalied, or just get beat.
And if that happens then there will be genuine questions about the specifics of the franchise: about the coach, about the GM, about how this thing is built. Whether fair or not, that’s the way the game is played.
But the Leafs could win, too, and if that happens the first-round curse evaporates into the air. Then Toronto would face Florida or Washington in the second round with a top gear — which the Leafs showed off in Game 1, in the first period of Game 2, and in the final two periods of that thrilling Game 5 — that might be unmatched.
It’s another chance to change the story. In 2019, the Leafs failed to eliminate Boston in a Game 6 at home because the game turned Boston’s way and players were suddenly lost out there for half the game, skating in sand. Dubas believed the Leafs learned from the experience, and before the 2019-20 season he looked forward to changing those moments.
“That’s probably what you look at when you look at the maturation of the group is looking back on those moments, through time and through experience, especially with the people we have here, the character in there, just the way that they operate. They’ve accumulated it, and they’re equipped to handle it now,” Dubas said then. “They know that they’re coming; they’re not going to hide from it. It’s never going to be perfect. It’s going to come with its challenges.
“But I think that’s the exciting part for me. Not trying to avoid those moments in the future, but knowing that they’re coming, and how does our whole group respond when they do?”
Nearly three years later and it’s another moment for Toronto, with nothing guaranteed. You know what they’re capable of, and so do they, and Saturday night in Toronto the Leafs will play a Game 7 against an iconic team in the home barn with the whole thing feeling like it’s hanging in the air. The Leafs are capable of winning this game, and changing everything. Let’s see if they do.