Boo birds serenade Maple Leafs
With high expectations, Leafs fans are not taking kindly to floundering team
If you want to get a sense of how much is riding on the Toronto Maple Leafs’ season this year, Monday’s 6-3 loss to the Colorado Avalanche is as good a place as any to start.
With 5:31 remaining in the second period and the game tied 2-2, Colorado’s Carl Soderberg outmuscled and outworked Toronto defenceman Jake Gardiner for a loose puck and scored a short-handed goal. The following period, whenever Gardiner touched the puck, he heard something that no Leaf had heard since 18-wheelers were careening off cliffs.
Boos.
Not just one or a smattering of them. But rather a chorus of jeers that echoed throughout Scotiabank Arena.
It seemed laughable at the time. After all, these aren’t the same Leafs that once had jerseys and frozen waffles thrown at them during a 10-year stretch where they made the playoffs just once. This isn’t the same team that refused to salute its socalled fans after a home win. This isn’t Phil Kessel going through the motions or Randy Carlyle using words like mind-boggling to describe the team’s effort. Led by John Tavares, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, as well as Norris Trophy candidate Morgan Rielly on defence and Vezina Trophy candidate Frederik Andersen in net, the Leafs are not only one of the most entertaining teams in the NHL, but also one of the most successful. They aren’t in danger of missing the playoffs. Even after losing five of the last seven games, Toronto still has the third-best record in the Eastern Conference. Boo them? Are fans even paying attention?
Well, in some ways they are. This was a different kind of booing than Gardiner might have heard not too long ago when the team was continually missing the playoffs.
These days, fans are not booing out of frustration. They’re booing because they know some elements of the team are not playing to their potential.
Hope has now been replaced with expectation.
It’s not like this in Montreal, Vancouver or even Edmonton, where making the playoffs will be a cause for celebration. But the Leafs, along with the Calgary Flames and Winnipeg Jets, are in a different stage of their development.
We are starting to ask which Canadian team has the best chance of ending the Stanley Cup drought this year. And we’re posing the question in a way where we expect that one of Toronto, Calgary or Winnipeg should do it. The Flames, who have won seven of their last eight games, are the best team in the Western Conference. But they are still a team relying on a goaltending tandem for wins and where James Neal has four goals and 11 points this season. They are not perfect.
Neither are the Jets, who despite leading the Central Division in points, need to get Nikolaj Ehlers going and for Connor Hellebuyck to bump up his .908 save percentage.
It’s nitpicking. But it’s natural. It sure beats the alternative, when none of the seven Canadian teams qualified for the playoffs in 2015-16 and we were dreaming up ways as to whether success would ever come.
For the first time in more than a decade, fans are booing for all the right reasons.
They’re booing because losing to the Avalanche on a Monday isn’t good enough. Just making the playoffs this year isn’t good enough. The Leafs, who have lost in the opening round in each of the past two years, have to go deep. They have to challenge for the Stanley Cup, even if that means disposing of the Bruins and the Lightning in the process. Anything short of that goal will be a disappointment — not just for the Leafs, but for the Flames and Jets as well. That’s why the temperature has risen in Toronto these days. The Leafs are still one of the best in the league. But they’re not playing like it. Not with Gardiner losing puck battles, the power play seemingly getting worse by the day, and William Nylander looking like he left his hands back in Sweden when he signed that massive contract.
For the first time this season — and really, for the first time since Mike Babcock took over as head coach — the on-ice product is falling short of what’s on paper. It’s one thing to beat up on non-playoff teams like New Jersey and Vancouver, as Toronto has done recently. But when you lose 4-0 to the Predators, then drop the season series to the Bruins at home, followed by a loss to the slumping Avalanche, then it’s natural for the fans to wonder if this team is good enough to take that next step.
Right now, this team doesn’t look like a contender. It looks like a team that needs significant changes to its back end and a swift kick in the butt from its head coach.
With a litmus test game against the league-leading Tampa Bay Lightning on Thursday, we’ll see how Gardiner and the Leafs respond. Luckily for them, the game is being played on the road.