Elimination game defeats haunt Leafs

The longest Stanley Cup slump in NHL history can't be dumped at the skate boots of Toronto Maple Leafs players who weren't even born in 1967.

But what this edition must bear, as of Friday when Florida bumped off Washington, is the NHL's longest streak without a first-round playoff series triumph.

The Leafs had what politicos like to call `winning conditions.' There was no devastating injury during the series as befell John Tavares, Jake Muzzin, Roman Polak and others at crucial moments since 2017.

Tampa suffered the only injury setback, losing Brayden Point early in Game 7.

No Leaf went rogue like Nazem Kadri to become a suspension side show.

Toronto goaltender Jack Campbell didn't allow any soft goals, just some untimely ones, and had outplayed all-world puck stopper Andrei Vasilevskiy up to Saturday.

For the most part, Toronto checkers threw a blanket over Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, while offensive stars Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner combined for 17 points in the series. In faceoffs, the Leafs were even better than their league leading regular season mark of 55.1 per cent, while the Lightning were 15th among 16 post-season entries.

The Leafs had a chance to finish the series in Tampa, leading in Game 6 before eventually squandering that opportunity in overtime, but they held an ace in the hole with Game 7 set for noisy Scotiabank Arena.

Put it all together and the Leafs should have been on a plane to Sunrise, Fla. on Monday, rather than packing up.

And yet here they are, 0-6 in first rounds, 0-7 counting 2013. Before that they were nine years out of playoffs since beating Ottawa back in 2004. They're also zero for their last nine elimination games since 2018, perhaps the most damning stat.

“There are strides being made in the right direction, when you talk about the regular season,” said alternate captain Morgan Rielly in the post-Game 7 gloom. “But when the outcome is the same in the playoffs, it makes it difficult to reflect on it much differently.

“With time, we'll get a chance to think a little more clearly, with more clarity, try to find the areas that held us back. Once we do, we'll become a team that's winning playoff series.”*

TOUGH TALK

One topic that quickly faded in the series is whether the Leafs were physical enough. It was entertaining to watch Games 1 and 2 become `borderline violent' as coach Sheldon Keefe had forecast, but the only result was that Kyle Clifford was suspended for a game, while Wayne Simmonds took costly penalties. Neither played again.

When cooler heads prevailed, Matthews and Marner took on more aggressive roles, defenders Ilya Lyubushkin and Mark Giordano played with grit, and the undersized Michael Bunting and Colin Blackwell asserted themselves.

Nine Leafs had three or more hits in Game 7 and as a team they edged Tampa 39-37 for the series.

What they needed was more shot blocks, the Bolts dominating that statistic 26-13 as they held the fort in the third period.