Why can’t the Maple Leafs close out a series?
The Maple Leafs let down their fans once again in Game 5, being shut out on home ice and allowing a crushing shorthanded goal against. What is it about this group that they can’t finish? Justin Bourne examines.
If the Toronto Maple Leafs go into Ottawa on Thursday night and win a hockey game, they’ll have done what was expected of them. After winning the division in the regular season, disposing of their first-round opponent in six games would have been considered par for the course — the most likely of outcomes heading into the series.
But whether they finish the job in Game 6 or go on to lose the series, the way things shook out in Game 5 will always be relevant to the legacy of this group because it’s a perfect time capsule for how the Core Four (plus Morgan Rielly) have looked during the Years of Recurring Heartbreak.
That Tuesday night game could’ve been Game 7 versus Montreal, it could’ve been Game 5 against Columbus. Just change the jerseys, the goalies, whatever, the vibe and outcome were identical. Decades from now you could watch any 10-minute snippet of Game 5 against Ottawa and be reminded of exactly how those losses felt.
The Leafs made the opposing goaltender look great. The stars got shut down entirely. The power play went ice cold. They couldn’t get to the inside, and instead of falling all over the opposing goalie with reckless abandon trying to make something — anything — happen, they got some OK looks then slunk back to the locker room. Next comes the hopeful half-confidence to the media, because what else should they say?
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By now you know that Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Rielly have played 14 playoff hockey games where a win would’ve advanced their team to the next round of playoffs, and they’ve won just one of them. In those games:
Marner: 14GP-0G-5PTS
Matthews: 14GP-4G-9PTS
Nylander: 14GP-2G-11PTS
Rielly: 14GP-3G-4PTS
(John Tavares is now 1-9 in his 10 elimination games, with five goals and seven points including an OT winner. He is a part of this core, yet like Rielly, he doesn’t really feel like the main story here.)
Matthews, Marner, and Nylander are all far better than point-per-game players in the regular season.
So, what is it?
No seriously, specifically, what is it?
There’s some reason they’ve repeatedly fallen short, so that means the failings have to be one of, or some mix of: mental, physical, or character. Let’s consider all three.
(It could be “bad luck” to the world’s most statistically inclined, but since years of watching hockey have told us all that it is unequivocally not just “bad luck,” we’ll go ahead and ignore that here.)
Mental
I know over the years that the Leafs have employed various sports psychologists, but I can’t speak directly to which players specifically work with someone in this field. I do know that in many cases internal efforts are taken to keep the coaching staff from knowing which players do seek out help and why, as it’s a confidentiality issue. If you’re a player, you don’t need some old-school coach questioning your mental game just because you’ve sought to improve, and so, it’s tough for us on the outside to know who puts in the time there.
Because let’s face it: a mental failing would look a lot like what we’ve seen, would it not? That they can’t summon the best versions of themselves in the biggest moments? That they don’t do the very things we know they aren’t only capable of, but great at? That they seem to shrink, in many cases retreating and making errors rather than forcing others on to their heels?
The market in Toronto provides an immense amount of pressure, and once the negative numbers start to pile up and games start to go that way again, you could see how hard it would be to grab hold mid-fall and swing back the other way. It’s a mental battle we recently saw Rory McIlroy fight in The Masters, but the Leafs have yet to slay their personal dragon.
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I see them less involved than in the regular season (fewer touches), less creative, and less likely to dictate the pace.
The game is a little different in the post-season, sure, and in elimination games in particular, but the Senators’ D-corps is not the Hall-of-Famer-laden groups we’ve seen from some of the more recent Stanley Cup winners. You’d expect Toronto’s guys to be able to find the odd bit of space out there.
Physical
Could it be that after a long year, the Leafs don’t have another gear, energy-wise? That seems unlikely since they’re all pro athletes in their 20s and their counterparts can do it.
Could it be that the opposing teams spend extra attention trying to take away their time and space?
Well, of course, but to me a guy like Nylander should love defenders being too tight to him, as he’s one of the NHL’s best skaters. A quick juke should send him on his way.
One of the things that does happen is teams pack it in around their net and don’t let Toronto get to the inside as easily. The reason the Leafs got through Tampa Bay in 2023 is that Andrei Vasilevskiy was notorious for struggling on long shots at the time (through traffic), and they scored on a pile of distance-sifters.
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Against Ottawa, Matthews and Marner can’t find the ice inside, and so they end up heaving more “hope” shots on net, which result in saveable plays and a loss of possession. Perhaps a fix here is having Matthew Knies just live in the blue paint in Game 6, but he’s mostly done a good job of that anyway. He does not seem afflicted by this curse (he was on for all three overtime-winning goals versus Tampa Bay in 2023, and for Simon Benoit’s this year, too).
By “physical” we could also mean tactical. Sure, it’s possible that the Leafs’ power play gets figured out somewhat (Breaking News: Marner doesn’t want to shoot, Matthews doesn’t want to pass, etc.) and their one dimensionality hurts them as series go on. They could try to throw the occasional off-speed pitch to mix it up for the opposing defences, which could help.
“Physical” could also mean they’ve had terrible injury luck at bad times, from Tavares getting conked by Corey Perry against Montreal, or Matthews and Nylander less than 100 per cent last year (both missed games), and on and on. But listen, players on good teams miss games and the others pick them up.
By and large, the best players in the NHL still produce in the playoffs, even with extra attention, extra scouting, and extra ice time. It seems really unlikely to me that “it’s physical” is the sole answer to “What is it with these guys?”
Character
This is probably the most common one you read online, because fans are emotional, and frankly, most don’t see the X’s and O’s all that great in what’s a very fast game where even NHL head coaches need several replays to understand certain events. So fans chalk it up to character, saying that they’re entitled, spoiled, soft, afraid, or lacking courage. That they’ve always had success come easy, and when things get hard, rather than grinding, they pout and roll over.
This one I like least of all because what can we possibly know about that from our vantage point? What can I assume about another man, and who am I to even throw those stones? These are good people, well-liked guys who do good for their communities and families. So those slopes are slippery.
But here’s what I do know: when you watch certain players around the league, you can tell they hate to lose with the fire of 10,000 suns. In Game 5 of the Dallas-Colorado series, there’s a close up of Nathan MacKinnon yelling at Charlie Coyle on the bench. Later in the period MacKinnon set up a Colorado goal, which came just before he scored one himself after taking contact and blowing past a forward to put it in. I don’t know what’s in that guy’s heart, but I can tell you that he’s an ever-loving competitor who would do just about anything to not lose a hockey game.
And while Matthews has won a Hart Trophy, and Marner may get a smattering of votes for it this year, you’ve never felt like they feel like that about losing. We have Brad May appear on Real Kyper and Bourne, and we often use a drop of his audio from those hits where he says “I’d fight my mom to win the Stanley Cup.” And he means it. Being that competitive at hockey doesn’t make you a better man than these Leafs players, but when we’re guessing what’s in the hockey hearts of these guys as these games slip away, they sure seem to hate that it’s happening, though it seems fair to suggest they don’t hate it like that. Or at least, that’s how it looks to the rest of us on the outside.
Now…
In all likelihood, the cause of Toronto’s shortcomings in these spots is a complicated tangle of varied reasons from each individual game. Those reasons likely draw a little from each of the above categories, and would also have something to do with the other personnel that has surrounded the group at times. So, this is not to hang each loss on the neck of this core as some albatross. In each year you can point at the roster (often the goalie) and find clear faults.
But at the end of the day they are the guys who play the most and get paid the most, so they’re under the most scrutiny. And that’s what we’re doing here.
Scrutinizing. Because watching this is agonizing.
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Zooming out, this could be the final learning lesson they need to finally figure out the key to these elimination games. It could be! Pucks could go in from all over in Game 6. Years later, Game 5 could be the turning point in their respective autobiographies, where we one day read that they got together on the plane ride to Ottawa and said “Enough is enough.”
To which I offer: It has definitely, 100 per cent, been enough.
Fans in Toronto have believed and been hurt, have believed again and let down again, only to get sucked all the way back in to now find themselves emotionally dangled by their toes from the top of the CN Tower, about to be dropped from a height no sane fan could come back from without being scarred forever.
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Real Kyper and Bourne
Nick Kypreos and Justin Bourne talk all things hockey with some of the biggest names in the game. Watch live every weekday on Sportsnet and Sportsnet+ — or listen live on Sportsnet 590 The FAN — from 4 p.m. to 6 p.m. ET.
This year’s Maple Leafs are a good hockey team, really good. This is the best defence group this core has had, the best goalie they’ve had, and 14 NHL forwards deep. They’ve got a chance to eliminate their first-round opponent in six games. To someone who hasn’t been steeped in the teas of heartbreak here for almost a decade, they’re in a good spot, just enduring the ups and downs of the post-season as all Cup hopefuls do. “Relax,” right?
But after Game 5 the PTSD is too real for Leafs fans to not have the very conversation we’re having here, and wonder: Is this really about to happen again? What is it with these guys?
Well, I wish I had a better, clearer answer for you.
But what fans should really hope is that the Leafs have a better answer for the Sens in Game 6 on Thursday night than I do for you here. This topic isn’t fun. But for fans, watching these games isn’t fun either.
In the end, I leave you feeling like those talented players look sitting on the bench as the seconds tick down, another opportunity slipping by: Without an answer, and without satisfaction.
