Maple Leafs’ newest Sport 7 loss provides to core’s disappointment – NHL.com

Acquainted questions encompass key gamers after crew will get eradicated by Bruins once more
© Steve Babineau/NHLI through Getty Photographs
BOSTON — For the fourth time in 11 years, the Toronto Maple Leafs bid adieu to their season with a handshake line at heart ice of TD Backyard after shedding Sport 7 to the Boston Bruins.
The query is, what number of of them shall be saying goodbye once more within the coming weeks, this time to the Toronto group?
Admittedly, the Maple Leafs, buoyed by the return of star heart Auston Matthews, fought valiantly in a heartbreaking 2-1 overtime loss to the Bruins within the deciding recreation of their Japanese Convention First Spherical sequence right here Saturday.
However lose they did.
Once more.
Make it one postseason sequence win previously 20 years. And 6 straight Sport 7 losses courting to 2013.
Make it a 1-8 file in Stanley Cup Playoff sequence during which Matthews, forwards Mitch Marner and William Nylander, and defenseman Morgan Rielly — the majority of the crew’s core — have appeared.
How do you carry the identical band again?
That’s the query for first-year common supervisor Brad Treliving to ponder.
Furthermore, how protected is coach Sheldon Keefe? Even crew president Brendan Shanahan?
These are points new Maple Leaf Sports activities & Leisure president and CEO Keith Pelley could must deal with.
When it comes to the gamers, Keefe was requested about the way forward for the core and whether or not he thought it would have the ability to ultimately break by means of. Needless to say that group contains captain John Tavares, who’s 1-6 in postseason sequence with the Maple Leafs.
“We’ve been speaking about this for a very long time and we’ve tried to interrupt by means of for a very long time,” the coach stated. “So, you understand, any reply goes to fall on deaf ears in that sense. And I get that.
“All I am going to say is that the group pulled collectively to me, and the best way it pulled collectively right here on this final week, and thru the season, this group was totally different this 12 months. The core you are referring to is not totally different. The blokes round have been totally different, the sensation across the crew was totally different, we performed totally different.”
Sadly for the Maple Leafs and their legion of loyal, long-suffering followers, the end result wasn’t.
And afterward, the crushed gamers have been saying most of the similar issues they’ve said after so many frequent early playoff exits.
“We have been by means of rather a lot collectively,” Matthews stated of the core. “I imply, in the long run, it is a recreation of inches [and] we’ve not fairly gotten over that hump. However clearly, by means of the years, you develop and we’ve come extraordinarily shut.”
Give credit score the place it’s due.
Matthews, who gained the Maurice “Rocket” Richard Trophy for many targets within the common season (69), labored valiantly to return to the lineup for Sport 7 after being out because the third interval of Sport 4 with an undisclosed sickness/damage.
Nylander, in the meantime, disclosed that he missed the primary three video games of the sequence with migraines, which he stated gave him blurred imaginative and prescient. He rebounded to attain Toronto’s remaining three targets of the sequence.
“It [stinks], to be trustworthy,” he stated when requested in regards to the loss. “We have been actually shut and we battled again within the sequence.
“I don’t know what to say. It’s an empty feeling proper now.”
R1, Gm7: Maple Leafs @ Bruins Recap
Sure, the Maple Leafs did present battle in getting back from a 3-1 sequence deficit to drive additional time in Sport 7. On the similar time, take into account this: The Bruins didn’t maintain the lead as soon as within the remaining three video games of the sequence, but nonetheless discovered a strategy to advance to play the Florida Panthers within the second spherical.
That’s as a result of Boston’s largest star, David Pastrnak, scored the sequence winner at 1:54 of additional time by beating Marner and Rielly to a dump-in off the boards earlier than deking goalie Ilya Samsonov. Samsonov began rather than Joseph Woll, who sustained an undisclosed damage late in Sport 6.
The underside line: Within the clutch, when it mattered essentially the most, the Bruins’ finest participant was precisely that.
Then again, how do you clarify yet one more recreation during which the Maple Leafs lacked offense? On a crew with 4 gamers — Matthews, Marner, Nylander and Tavares — who gobble up nearly half the crew’s house underneath the NHL wage cap whereas being counted on to produce targets, this was the thirteenth time in Toronto’s previous 14 playoff video games that it scored two or fewer.
As well as, the fizzling energy play, that includes loads of star energy, went 1-for-21 (4.8 %) within the sequence, a recipe for catastrophe.
In an fascinating twist, Bruins coach Jim Montgomery revealed after the sport that former Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock, who was 0-3 in playoff sequence with Toronto, reached out to him with recommendation earlier than Sport 6. In the long run, nevertheless, it was Toronto’s incapacity to complete that led to its demise.
What occurs now?
Matthews and Nylander have been locked up with long-term contracts previously 9 months. Marner has one season left on his deal, which features a no-move clause.
It’s a conundrum dealing with a proficient crew that fell brief but once more.
“It is largely laborious proper now to complete the season like that,” Samsonov stated.
These have turn into far-too-familiar phrases in Toronto in current occasions.
🔹 Florida Panthers vs. Tampa Bay Lightning
🔹 Boston Bruins vs. Toronto Maple Leafs
🔹 New York Rangers vs. Washington Capitals
🔹 Carolina Hurricanes vs. New York Islanders
🔹 Dallas Stars vs. Vegas Golden Knights
🔹 Winnipeg Jets vs. Colorado Avalanche
🔹 Vancouver Canucks vs. Nashville Predators
🔹 Edmonton Oilers vs. Los Angeles Kings

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