The Maple Leafs will be eliminated in the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. Stop me if you have heard this before. While Toronto is still technically competing, there is nothing to indicate that this team can change things against Florida after absolute shame on Wednesday night that saw Leafs lose 6-1 at home, which allowed Panthers to take an advantage of the 3-2 series and take control of their ice on the ice to close this.
It is not so much that Toronto has lost. That part can be forgiven. Stanley Cup champions are hard opponents, and Florida’s physicality is well combined against Top Lights more than Finals. The problem that Reaxly He appeared on Wednesday that Toronto players stopped worrying. They renounce.
That may seem a hard evaluation, but Toronto players and coach Craig Berube also saw it.
“I don’t think they come more difficult than they have done. I think we let them come tonight. We stood up and watched,” LEAFS coach Craig Berube lamented.
“They made us kick us, Reaxly. They had the album, they won the races. As, we only played. They helped.
It is absolutely amazing to hear the phrase “are more hungry” of a coach after game 5 in the playoffs, at home, with the potential that reads and expectations have not only of a city, but of an entire country loving hockey. You almost need active attempt Worry less in conditions like that, but Toronto found a way.
“Careless game. It is not quite difficult to work. Give too many opportunities on our network. There is a good list of it”, “,”, “,” [Mitch] Marner said. “I don’t think anyone is happy for that.”
PK Subban made a tiler of the game after the Toronto struggles in ESPN, and in a rare moment of clarity in the ads desk: I was wrong.
Subban’s Take is Correct Conpeuxy, something hash To change. The problem is what and how? It is not as if Toronto had tried to correct the ship over the years. The franchise has constantly tried different touches to find success, but nothing works. This is not like the Dallas Cowboys, a similar organization in mediocrity during the last 30 years, but with a common thread of Jerry Jones’s interference. Meanwhile, the Leafs have gone through five general managers in the last 15 years, six chief coaches in the same period of time. They have turned the star strikers from Phil Kessell and James Van Riemsdyk to Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner. The team has made adjustments in defense, turned through the goalkeepers.
So, while Subban says the well -torn axiom of “madness is doing the same and once again”, that does not apply to leafs. They have done a lot. The problem is that nothing has worked.
The true common thread when it comes to the leaves is the despair and the weight of the expectation. There is an “too big to fail” element when it comes to Toronto, and that is a management pressured over the years to make too many small adjustments to stay competitive, instead of accepting the need to make a complete reconstruction. That has led to a generalized and incorrect belief that Toronto is much closer to winning a drink of what they really are, and their commercial history in the last five years shows it.
- 2025: changed to Scott Laughton, sending a first round selection and the 22 -year -old prospect Nikita Grebenkin
- 2025: exchanged by Brandon Carlo, sending a first round selection and the 20 -year -old Fraser Menter prospect
- 2024: He negotiated for Joel Edmunson in a rent, sending a third and fifth round selection
- 2023: Negotiated by Luke Schenn in a rent, sending a selection of the third round
- 2023: Negotiated by Jake McCabe and Sam Lafferty, sending the first and second round selection
- 2022: changed by Matt Giodano and Colin Blackwell, sending two second round teams and a third round selection
- 2021: Negotiated by Stefan did not, sending first and fourth round selections
This complete contempt of the draft and the development of their perspectives has put the readculus alights with anything to show. Before the 2024-25 season, the Hockey writers described all agricultural systems in the NHL, and Toronto finished 25º because Grebenkin and Minten-Now are exchanged. The teams that ended up the lowest for them further advanced in the playoffs, which shows that something is happening in that main office where Toronto is not only distributing selections such as sweets, but they incorrectly choose the objectives to acquire, because no one in the previous commercial lists has come out.
What we have at this time is a franchise without rudder without any clear objective. There is no appearance of a plan behind the construction of leafs that are not “Get Good Skaters”, and without an identity to build they are only throwing garbage on the wall and waiting for him to stay.
The real shame is what is to come (and what shoulder Happen). Toronto needs to accept that Marner is not a piece that can beat them the cup and let him go to free agency. The temptation will be great, but instead, this team needs to remove the bandaid, and it will hurt: Toronto needs to exchange Auston Matthews.
Yes, he is one of the best players throughout the NHL, but at this time its commercial value will never be higher. It is an opportunity to obtain multiple first round selections, replenish your farm and try to correct to become excellent, instead of loving very well. At this point, there is no amount of reorganization with Matthews as the centerpiece that can bring a Stanley Cup to Toronto in the next five years, which is basically its window to continue being an elite player with a high price.
Will Toronto do that? No, absolutely not. There is no planet in which the team, with this trap, locked in this way of thinking will exchange one of the largest nhl superstars. Too much spine would be needed to make a movement like this, but it is what this franchise needs. Until something big happens, we will go back here next year, wondering why the reads are shooting in the playoffs once more.
