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After Game 5, Jeff Marek tweeted, 鈥淚t鈥檚 not complicated. The Florida Panthers are a better team.鈥� And while Jeff is probably correct that the Panthers were more determined, stronger, better in goal and played a gruellingly effective hockey, it鈥檚 beyond complicated that the Leafs fell short here. Their legacy of losing series isn鈥檛 a trend, it鈥檚 a pathology. It鈥檚 writ in the stars, ferried through the blood. It鈥檚 a new way every year, each disappointment finding a fresh flat of skin like a tattoo artist searching for pink on a carney鈥檚 arm. This year, the series loss came after a heroic victory in Game 6 over Ottawa as well as well as two wonderful performances in Games 1, 2, and 6 in this series. The Leafs were once a shot away from taking a 3-0 lead, which, we know now, they likely would have lost. The Gods are saving that for next time.聽

With four minutes left in the third period, the crowd in section 313 chanted: LETS GO OILERS. In the press box, I sat next to a young woman from Radio Canada 鈥斅爃er first trip on press row 鈥� who left to do a radio hit, then had the wisdom not to return. The building began to empty, and, among those who remained, the boos seemed particularly loud and grey no matter how hard the in-game entertainment folks tried squelching them with AC/DC. A sweater was thrown to the ice. Another. Someone rinkside gave Morgan Reilly the finger. The score reached 6-1. All that was once light grew dark and the players shuffled out there for a few final shifts. My bike was waiting and so was the celebratory, now funereal, joint I鈥檇 rolled. I moved out of the rink with the blue and white torrent.聽

Riding my bike north on University, across Harbord, through Bickford Park, then Christie Pits until I found the smooth Shaw Street lanes under my wheels, I knocked a few things around in my head: how the boyish Mitch Marner has struggled to play like a man and how, in the end, there wasn鈥檛 a trusted third line. I thought of how William Nylander played like he was being chased by a ghost and how Auston Matthews mostly took the long way home. I thought of how the team鈥檚 effort along the wings was utterly vacant and how their drive to the net was as if a page had been torn out of a book explaining the push it takes in the playoffs to make every puck scrum seem perilous for your opponent. I thought of the utter inability of the team to ride on the roar of the outrageously great crowd or to feed on the sense of will that seemed born in the miracle of Game 6. I blamed everyone聽鈥� Morgan Reilly and Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas and Doug Ford and whoever tore down the Galleria. I blamed Triumph and I blamed Rogers and I blamed Metrolinx and I blamed every a weed shop that now stands where a club or bookstore once did. I resisted blaming myself but it was hard not to feel somehow complicit in the heartache, which no one needs any more of; more disappointment or sense of inevitable despair. 6-1 in Game 7 left me reaching for even the slightest crumb of what鈥檚 left of hope, but down here, it鈥檚 not like it鈥檚 been before; it鈥檚 darker. It鈥檚 just a hockey team, right. It鈥檚 just a game, right. But if that team will sometimes make you soar it will also crush you with a boot heel, then take off the boot and crush you with its foot.

Hit me, baby, one more time.