Toronto Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube arrives to speak to the media during the end of the season locker clean out day in Toronto on May 20.Nathan Denette/The Canadian Press
The Toronto Maple Leafs aren’t playing the Florida Panthers any more, but they continue to be beaten by them.
On Tuesday, the Leafs performed the annual debasement ritual of locker clear out. The idea is to explain why things went wrong this year. What actually happens is that the Leafs convince you that things will go wrong next year, too.
There’s never an ounce of insight or reflection. No one laughs or says anything remotely witty. Their lips are moving, but their eyes are dead. Ethnologists ought to study it as a unique example of Southern Ontario funerary rites.
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Since they are all terrified that whatever they say might be used against them, every Leaf deploys the same phrases in the same order.
I’m excited to tell you that the Maple Leafs Word of 2024-25 is “structure.” The Leafs misplaced theirs. That’s why they lay down and played dead in Games 5 and 7.
The players all said it at least once. Head coach Craig Berube said it so often it sounded like he was recording the vocal chop for a techno song.
They had structure. Then they didn’t. And they lost again. Thanks for coming.
If you had to boil the whole thing down to one sentence, it was William Nylander struggling to find a way to sum up the latest Ragnarok he’s lived through and landing on, “We learned a lot of things.”
Hanging above proceedings is the fact that everyone knows what the Leafs’ problem is – they are choke artists.
That’s what you call it when a professional outfit loses seven Game 7s in a row, six of them in the last eight years.
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This isn’t one of their problems. It’s their only problem. If Toronto wins half those games – which is statistically more probable than losing them all – the conversation around this team is completely different.
That is what needs addressing. Instead, the Leafs want to talk about the time in the second period that someone pinched when they shouldn’t have.
They don’t get it, but Florida does.
When Brad Marchand says, “When you see the pressure that Toronto faces and everyone’s talking about the 20- or 30-year build-up and you see the fans and the way they’re talking, they just beat pressure in that team,” that’s not a helping hand. That’s a trap.
When Matthew Tkachuk says on a podcast later, “If their team was not in Toronto, dealing with all the crazy circus stuff outside of it, they’d be an unbelievable team,” that is a double-trap.
All the Leafs had to do to avoid it was admit what everyone with two brain cells to rub together knows – that those two guys are right. Toronto is hard on hockey players.
Given a couple of days to brainstorm ideas, the Leafs came up with a counterargument – no, it isn’t.
“There’s pressure everywhere. I don’t care where you’re playing,” said Craig Berube, waving off the idea. Then he mentioned Columbus.
Mitch Marner: “There’s pressure everywhere. There’s pressure anywhere.”
Auston Matthews: “[Pressure] is just kind of outside noise that isn’t talked about or focused on in our locker room.”
John Tavares: “There’s pressure everywhere.”
No, there isn’t. In the NFL maybe, but not in the National Hockey League.
Toronto is not like Columbus. It’s not even like Ottawa or Vancouver. The only comparison point is Montreal, and most of the players there can hide from a lot of the bad stuff because it’s written and said in a language they don’t understand.
Toronto is 60 years of frustration, amplified by 10 years of flopping, multiplied by a hundred media outlets, ginning up millions of fans, causing the team to implode every time they come within whispering distance of changing the channel.
Somehow, Florida has gulled the Leafs into announcing that what is very obviously the root of their issue isn’t even an issue to begin with. This willful ignorance must be the reason why they keep putting their faith in the wrong personnel.
This is not to say that Matthews or Marner aren’t stars. They are. They’re just not built for this market. The proof is in the results.
Tavares – also not a Toronto player.
William Nylander – not a Toronto player.
Solid professionals, I have no doubt. But they don’t have that special thing you need to play for the biggest clubs.
There’s no need to feel bad about it. No Toronto player of great talent has had it for 50 years. Doug Gilmour, Darryl Sittler, Mats Sundin, none of them. If they had, the Leafs wouldn’t be in this perpetual jam.
It is the same in every other sport. Not everyone is built to play for the New York Yankees or the L.A. Lakers. The difference is that in those organizations, they recognize the problem, which is they win occasionally.
What does Toronto do? It takes four stars who can’t handle critique and forces them to explain every loss. No wonder they all come off as different degrees of catatonic whenever they’re in front of a camera. They are living their nightmare, but telling people it’s their dream.
Go watch the videos for yourself – tell me you believe any of these guys when they talk about how much they love it here.
I do believe someone like Chris Tanev when he says he enjoys it. He’s built different. He doesn’t have the glassy eyes of someone who’s seen too many things.
The Leafs don’t need more all-stars. They don’t need the all-stars they have. They need 20 Chris Tanevs or, even better, Brad Marchands. Forget about skill sets. Hire for personality.
But this would mean admitting that whatever’s wrong can’t be fixed with a slightly different game plan and more puck discipline.
That in turn would require a complete reworking of the franchise’s philosophy, which sounds like a lot of work. It’s much easier to keep telling everyone that things are fine.
Are you cheering for the Oilers as Canada’s team now?
First the Habs, then the Sens, and now the Jets and the Leafs are out, too. The Oilers are the only Canadian team left standing in the NHL playoffs, and we want to know if you’re all in on Edmonton. Have you always been loyal to the oil? Are you setting aside old rivalries in hopes the Oilers can bring the Stanley Cup to Canada? Or would you rather an American team hoist the Cup – again – over a Canadian team who’s not your own? Tell us in the form below or by emailing audience@globeandmail.com with “NHL Playoffs” in the subject line.