Morgan Rielly had to keep himself from crying. The Maple Leafs had just been eliminated by a 3-2 loss to the Florida Panthers in overtime, their glittering talent falling short in a monster game, an epic, an opera. Rielly had scored one goal and had another one taken away. He is the longest serving Leaf and delivered a terrific playoffs.
But the Leafs were out in five games, and now the future of this team is a question. Rielly had said his disappointment was hard to describe. As he tried to put the team into perspective, he almost stopped talking.
鈥淚 love these guys,鈥 he said. 鈥淎nd I don鈥檛 ...鈥
He slowed. He repeated those words: I don鈥檛.
鈥淚 don鈥檛 want anything to change,鈥 he said.
It won鈥檛 be up to him. In this game, Auston Matthews fired eight shots on goal, John Tavares seven, William Nylander six and an absurd game-tying goal, and Mitch Marner five. The Leafs fired 53 shots on goal and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 51 of them, and 海角社区官网scored two goals for the seventh straight game, if you don鈥檛 count the puck that Rielly shoved in but couldn鈥檛 prove in court. But that phantom goal wasn鈥檛 the reason the Leafs are done.
鈥淥bviously for me, we lose the series in the first three games,鈥 said coach Sheldon Keefe. 鈥淭he first three games, we鈥檙e in similar positions (to) Games 4 and 5, but didn鈥檛 handle situations well and didn鈥檛 capitalize on our chances. And our margin for error is basically none because of the first three games.鈥
鈥淲e believe we had a team good enough to win the Stanley Cup, and we didn鈥檛 do that.鈥
Keefe talked about being proud of how the team didn鈥檛 lie down and held together in Games 4 and 5. But as he said, it took until the Leafs were almost dead before they delivered what Keefe called their best effort of the season in Game 4. They had a lull-happy Game 1, got goalied in Game 2, and Matthews and Marner and Tavares didn鈥檛 show their best in Game 3. From there, the Leafs held their nerve. But they didn鈥檛 have any margin for error.
鈥淚 mean, obviously we dug ourselves in a bit of a hole there,鈥 said Matthews, who did not score in the series on 26 shots. 鈥淎nd I think it was all kind of just stuff on us, just kind of shooting ourselves in the foot at times.鈥
The Leafs had fallen behind 2-0 in the first on a Florida power-play goal and a rush goal that came out of nowhere. Rielly scored in the second, and his swooping attack late in the period was probably a goal but you couldn鈥檛 prove it. Debris littered the ice after that. But the Leafs still had time, and when Nylander scored a ridiculous goal with 4:27 left, on a rush that ended below the faceoff circle, the Leafs had room for one mistake, or one play to extend the series.
Nick Cousins scored on a rush in OT on Florida鈥檚 44th shot, with Radko Gudas holding Calle J盲rnkrok鈥檚 stick. The Leafs had just rushed the other way, and Timothy Liljegren and Ryan O鈥橰eilly collided in front of the Panthers goal. That was it. Gudas roared like a woolly wild animal in goalie Joseph Woll鈥檚 face, and Matthews consoled Woll for a good long time after the game, and the handshake line came one round later this year.
Was it how they were built? Coached? Designed? 海角社区官网added grit and experience at the deadline, more than anything, and it helped get them past a worn but dangerous Tampa team in the first round. But against Florida they just did not score enough and the series slipped away so quickly, and the Leafs were left with a game that was a brief echo of what this city could be, and should be: a building that was truly electric, almost jumping off its foundations, for a team that delivered under pressure with the season on the line.
But they couldn鈥檛 make one more play, and the season is over.
鈥淚 think if you look at how we played over the course of the series, there were moments where we were playing really well and we felt like we could have won games or held on to leads,鈥 said Rielly. 鈥淏ut we weren鈥檛 able to do that.鈥
鈥淚t was a grind of a series, even though it was only five games,鈥 said Florida鈥檚 Matthew Tkachuk. He said he thought 海角社区官网had the most individual talent in the league.
鈥淭hey鈥檙e so dynamic,鈥 said Panthers coach Paul Maurice, who credited the Boston series as preparation for this one. The one-time Leafs coach also said, 鈥淭he pressure on the Leafs started in training camp, not in this series. This is a different beast like no other.鈥 He added only Montreal might compare.
And now, the reckoning. This could be a seismic summer for Toronto. After seven playoff seasons and one series win, things may change. It starts in the front office; it may not end there.
General manager Kyle Dubas doesn鈥檛 have a contract past July 1. The Leafs have 10 free agents who will need to be re-signed or replaced starting July 1. And starting July 1, the much-discussed young core of this team 鈥 Matthews, Marner and Nylander 鈥 will either have no-move clauses, in the case of Matthews and Marner, or a limited no-move for Nylander. Oh, and Matthews and Nylander are eligible for extensions July 1, too.
The potential decision tree could be dizzying, and fast.
Does Dubas get an offer? Does he want to walk? Whoever the GM is, they better have a vision for what needs to be done. Does Matthews want to stay a Leaf and continue to carry the burden that comes with the franchise? Does he want to stay if Dubas leaves? Does he want to stay if Marner is traded, or Nylander? We don鈥檛 know. And until any of that happens, we don鈥檛 have to find out.
鈥淚 mean, yeah,鈥 said Marner, when asked if he wanted this same core group to get another chance. 鈥淲e all got years left on our contracts. I mean, I don鈥檛 know. It鈥檚 not up to us, but we got a lot of belief in this group. We got a lot of belief in that core. And it sucks right now, but we got belief.鈥
But now the decision sequences begin. Team president Brendan Shanahan, Dubas, the front office, the coach and a roster that finally escaped the first round, and then got handed a gentleman鈥檚 sweep by a 92-point Florida team that got red hot at the right time.
The Leafs tried. It wasn鈥檛 enough.
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