Progress or not, Leafs can’t possibly keep core together after Game 7 meltdown

Nothing could summarize the disconnect between the Toronto Maple Leafs and understanding how to handle big moments like the instantly viral image of Mitch Marner, screaming at the bench to “Wake the fuck up.”

The score was 3-0 for the Florida Panthers. The Leafs were getting blown out in Game 7, and there was Marner, who has no goals and two points in six career Game 7s, screaming at everyone else.

The reality: Marner fell short as much as all his teammates did during a truly awe-inspiring collective meltdown Sunday night at Scotiabank Arena.

It started with an 18-man panic attack in the first half of the first period. Depending on which statistician you use, the Panthers opened the game with, give or take, the first 20 shot attempts at 5-on-5 and first seven shots on goal. To a man, the Leafs were spaghetti-legged, losing every puck race, kept alive by goaltender Joseph Woll, who weathered the early barrage.

Toronto survived and briefly looked ready to thrive. It took over the second half of the period, earning some sustained zone time, with its third and fourth lines doing some inspired work and checkers Scott Laughton and Steven Lorentz even getting sprung for breakaways. The Leafs actually finished the period with more 5-on-5 scoring chances than the Panthers.

But those 10 minutes went down as the only positive in what quickly became another night of playoff infamy for the Blue and White. Early in the second period, Florida punctured Toronto’s thin skin when defenseman Morgan Rielly was caught flat-footed at the blueline, creating a Panthers 2-on-1. Brandon Carlo played the pass, leaving defenseman Seth Jones to Woll, and Jones wired a perfect wrist shot over Woll’s right shoulder. The Leafs couldn’t find their equilibrium after that. Within 6:24 of the Jones goal, Florida scored twice more, with Anton Lundell and Jonah Gadjovich finishing off scrambles in which the Leafs desperately swam around their zone, unable to clear the puck. During Toronto’s waking nightmare of a second period, the Panthers outchanced them 16-3 at 5-on-5.

And that was it. No amount of firebreathing from Marner or coach Craig Berube, who looked as animated as he had all season after the deficit stretched to 3-0, would be enough to come back against the defending Stanley Cup champions. As Leafs captain Auston Matthews put it, “we had too many passengers” from the second period onward.

Max Domi slid a short-side wrist shot through Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky just 2:07 into the third period, early enough to spark a tiny flame of hope, but the Panthers stomped it out just 47 seconds later when – this is a recording – the Leafs couldn’t clear their zone and Eetu Luostarinen deflected a Brad Marchand shot past Woll. After Sam Reinhart made it 5-1 off a faceoff, the jersey tossing began, with some even littering the ice in the middle of the play. By the time the forensics team entered the scene to examine the body, it was 6-1 Florida. The fans cheered with mock joy when the final minute of the third period was announced on the PA sytem.

What makes the end of Toronto’s 2024-25 season so tough to classify, and why it drew such justified anger from the fans Sunday night: the specific manner in which it ended. In two of the Leafs’ final three contests, they were utterly humiliated in their own building, looking like an AHL team compared to their opponent, outscored 12-2 combined. Serious question: if you dropped the last-overall San Jose Sharks into the series for Games 5 and 7 in their home barn and gave them a crack at the Panthers, would the Sharks have lost by a worse margin? And yet, sandwiched between those two flops was an inspiring Game 6 in which every last Leaf found his urgency and Matthews and Marner converged on the winning goal. This is a stunningly contradictory team.

“You can’t go in a game like tonight and have anybody not at their best,” Berube said. “It doesn’t mean fancy plays or all these skilled plays. It’s just, you’re at your best when you’re highly competitive, winning your battles, desperation, doing everything possible to win the hockey game. And we didn’t do that tonight, and that’s why the result was the result.”

Berube was able to articulate what went wrong, but he was truly at a loss when asked to explain why the home no-shows happened in Games 5 and 7.

So what does the latest failure mean for the Leafs, then? Does winning seven games in a postseason for the first time since 2001-02 qualify as a success, or does blowing a 2-0 series lead and losing four of their final five games, faceplanting so decisively in their own building, undo any perceived progress? Which seismic roster changes now loom for GM Brad Treliving? It’s a question that may keep UFAs Marner and Tavares in particular awake as the two lifelong Leaf diehards, living their childhood dreams, face uncertain summers.

“It’s meant everything to me [to wear the Maple Leaf],” Tavares said. “It was a big decision I made seven years ago, and I’ve loved it. It’s been amazing for myself and my family. So just accept responsibility [that] we haven’t been able to come through and play well enough to get to where we want to get to. And unfortunately, our season ended today.”

“They took maybe a risky pick on a small kid from Toronto, and I’ve been forever grateful to be able to wear this Maple Leaf and be a part of some of the great legends here and be able to wear this jersey,” said an emotional Marner. “So, never taken a day for granted and I’ve always loved it.”

Matthews and Nylander aren’t going anywhere, having just commenced their long-term extensions. Nylander pulled his weight for much of these playoffs, at least compared to Toronto’s other core stars, and perhaps a healthier Matthews is more of an offensive asset in future postseasons. Power forward Knies, a restricted free agent, has obviously earned a lucrative extension, and the Leafs surely have learned enough from the Edmonton Oilers’ Dylan Holloway debacle that they would match any offer sheet for Knies. Rugged blueliner Chris Tanev was everything Toronto hoped he’d be and has just started the six-year pact he signed last summer. But plenty of other major pieces could end up moving. Do you try to keep Marner at an exorbitant cost, deciding the elite all-round play in the regular season is more valuable and bankable than that of the other veteran options on the UFA market, from Sam Bennett to Marchand to Nikolaj Ehlers? Or do you decide you can’t keep doing the same thing and truly kickstart a new era by walking away? Do you reward Tavares’ resurgent regular season and extend his contract at a team-friendly AAV? Do you look for ways to offload the contracts of Rielly and Domi after they were liabilities as often as they were assets this season?

So. Many. Questions. One more victory might have quieted them and earned this group another year of runway. But now the front office has to consider every possibility. It’s clear Toronto still doesn’t quite have the concoction correct. Not when the team’s anxiety in do-or-die moments remains so all-consuming.

Blow up the core, finally? It won’t be an easy decision-making process this summer for Treliving. The wrong choices could set the franchise back years. But you can’t possibly run the same core group back after what unfolded in a truly pathetic Game 7.

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POST SPONSORED BY bet365

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