Toronto Maple Leafs’ William Nylander (back right) and Matthew Knies (23) celebrate as Auston Matthews (not shown) scores on Ottawa Senators goaltender Linus Ullmark (35), during first period NHL playoff hockey action in Ottawa, on Thursday, May 1, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Justin TangJustin Tang/The Canadian Press
After his Tampa team had been run over in the first round by the Florida Panthers, the first question tossed up at head coach Jon Cooper was, essentially, “What happened?”
Cooper has that rare quality in sports of understanding that what he says will be quoted. Everybody knows it, but only a few guys understand it. As a result, Cooper takes the trouble to think about what comes out of his mouth.
He kind of slumped a bit and said, “Alright” in a tone of surrender, like he was about to let everyone in on a big secret. His lengthy answer boiled down to this – only one team at a given time knows how to win, and right now Florida is it.
“They’re not just an average team. They’re an exceptional team,” Cooper said. “They built a team. They got a sniff of it. They went to the final [in 2023]. Didn’t win. Came back. Went to the final, and won. … Now they know how to do it.”
When this guy thinks you’re doomed, it’s time to make sure your next of kin have all your passwords.
That’s what the Toronto Maple Leafs are up against now – not just the back-to-front best lineup in the NHL, but common wisdom. Nobody, but nobody, will rate Toronto going into this series. It’s a problem, as well as the opportunity.
The Leafs were able to shake the Ottawa Senators off their pant leg on Thursday. Hip hip hooray, or something.
This series was too close to convince anyone in that dressing room that things have changed. You could tell the overriding emotion was mild embarrassment.
The Leafs came out afterward with their serious faces on. No smiling, please, we are important hockey professionals. Even when they’re winning, the Leafs seem like they’re on work release.
Florida has the opposite type of job site. The Panthers are all about fun. They come to work, try their hardest to break your jaw, and then head home to the family feeling refreshed.
It’s the collision of two styles of hockey – anxious technique versus creative ultra-violence. It’s going to be Toradol for everyone, and no short pours.
For Florida, the next week or two are another step in the establishment of its legacy. Three straight Cup finals, and two consecutive trophies, would put it in the same discussion as Cooper’s best Tampa team or Sidney Crosby’s best version of the Penguins. It would set several Panthers on a Hall of Fame path.
To Florida, the Leafs are another stage in a larger project.
To Toronto, Florida is it. This is the whole thing. If the Leafs win this, the disappointment of the last decade meant something. It was all headed somewhere.
Even were they to go on to lose to whomever in the conference final, the Leafs could at least say they had left it all out there against the best team in hockey. They’ll be even better next time. Toronto hockey fans will buy just about anything, and they’d definitely buy that.
If it beats Florida, Toronto can remain as it is. Fat contracts for everyone who’s owed one, and no need to make any new name plaques.
But if Toronto can’t beat Florida, it also can’t play this like Cooper and the Lightning. Nobody’s going to sit there listening to the Leafs philosophize about how there is a time to sow and a time to reap. All this team does is plant, and no one but its players ever gets to eat.
It isn’t a make-or-break moment for the Leafs. As long as people are lined up to buy season-ticket packages, the Leafs are incapable of real self-reflection. There is too much incentive to stay in the same place, since the same place is warm and thriving.
What it would mean is the continued degradation of an idea – that the Auston Matthews/Mitch Marner/William Nylander Leafs can be the sort of great team Cooper is talking about.
You only get so many chances at this, and we’re not talking about what other people think of you. Your own fans will always believe this could be the year, because why else bother watching? Look at how well the Blue Jays have played that angle. They’re perpetual non-contending contenders.
But eventually, the players stop believing it themselves. That’s also human nature. They won’t stop trying, because that would mean they’d stop being paid. But every year, their swagger diminishes. The likelihood of accessing some new, higher level of play lessens concurrently.
This is how you get former eight-figure earners begging for a chance to play for a million bucks on a contender. They know they’re done, but they’ll debase themselves for the chance to hop on someone else’s back for one ride to glory.
Players who have achieved a great deal rarely go that route once they lose their legs. They’re happy to tail off with the team that brought them because their swagger remains intact. Crosby is a great example. Why should he start flopping around looking for one more Cup somewhere else? He has nothing to prove, including to himself.
The Leafs core aren’t old, but they must already be wondering if this is it. In Florida, they’ll get an up-close look at what could have been. The Panthers best players – Matthew Tkachuk, Aleksander Barkov, Sam Reinhart, Aaron Ekblad – are all about the same age as them.
It’d be one thing if the Leafs’ top guys were coming into this series riding a high, but they aren’t. They were average against Ottawa. Matthews is injured somehow, and seriously out of sorts. The rest of them fade in and out like a weak signal.
If all those circumstances make a Toronto win unlikely, then think of how transformative a win could be. It would change the direction of the franchise. In a strange way, it’s a perfect scenario for the Leafs – low risk, high reward. People can’t be any angrier at them than they have been the last three or four times.
But if they lose this series, a team that already lacks confidence takes another step in the direction of their current legacy – another lost Leafs generation.