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Now transfer that adage to the Maple Leafs. How ruthless should executive management be, weeding out the pretty parts that haven’t made the team good enough in the cauldron of the playoffs, after so many years on the boil?

On the morning after a Game 7 lossÌý— a trampling by the Florida PanthersÌý— and the many mornings to come after yet another post-season cut savagely short, the team will be dissected six ways from Sunday. That’s one sport this city is really amazeballs at.

Mitch Marner: Kiss him goodbye. Auston Matthews: Stuck with him. John Tavares: Here’s your hat, what’s your hurry? Brendan Shanahan:ÌýThank you for your service. Not.Ìý°Õ³ó±ð°ù±ð’s the door.

The only member of this outfit emerging unscathed is Craig Berube. Yet the coach had little insight to offer in the immediate aftermath, an elucidation for the why of it, the curdling in the biggest games of this era.

“I don’t have an answer for thatÌý— why?’’

“I don’t have an answer for you to that question.’’

“I don’t know, that’s the frustrating part.’’

“I can’t explain right now, nor do I want to, Game 5 and Game 7 at home. It’s obviously things we’ve got to look at and talk about as an organization.’’

He did nail one bullet: “You’ve got to have a level of desperation, determination, and I didn’t feel we had it.’’

So these desperados will clean out their lockers again on Tuesday morning, go off in their separate directions to either examine the entrails of what just happened or try to forget the whole damn thing.

A perceptive observation, though, from Florida bench boss Paul Maurice, who coached the Leafs for a couple of years in the very bad aughts.

“What’s great for the league is hard for the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøMaple Leafs and their players. The passion for the º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøMaple Leafs, the scrutiny these men are under is why everybody gets paid so much. It’s a driver. °Õ³ó±ð°ù±ð’s a cost for them. °Õ³ó±ð°ù±ð’s a challenge that you can hit one out of the park here and you’re never buying lunch for the rest of your life. But there’s a cost for these guys, for their families.

“When you lose a game like this, it’s going to rough on them. You’re going to go through a whole bunch of things that aren’t wrong, but they’re wrong because they lost. This is a good team. This is a much better team than we played two years ago, much. You’re going to assign a whole bunch of character flaws that just aren’t true.’’

Maurice was being gracious in victory. Right about the caterwauling fallout, but wrong about the absence of character flaws.

This team, the core of it, has been distorted from the beginningÌý— Kyle Dubas’s doing with Shanahan’s avid buy-inÌý— and all the corrective measures undertaken since haven’t changed its essence. I can’t speak to the character inside the inner dressing room but everybody can speak to the character on the ice when it’s most mattered. They are lacking.

For that I’m not ready to blame the captain. He rarely unmasks in the public eye and is loath to criticize a teammate for public consumption. He did, however, drop an anonymous denunciationÌý— “too many passengers’’Ìý— and he did it knowing what would happen. So now everybody can play the who-dat guessing game.

For himself, Matthews was clearly ailing with an undisclosed injury. Wouldn’t disclose it post-game, just as he never did a year ago. That makes it impossible to assess his performance. And seriously, do you really want to flush Matthews, arguably the greatest goal scorer ever? Get a grip.

Marner, however, it would be a mercy to let him walk as a free agent. Totally in his hands. I think it’s dawning on him, too, even as he refused to address his contract in Game 7’s aftermath. His exasperation was encapsulated in a screeching “Wake the f—- up!’’ to teammates in front of this own bench midway through the second period, caught on camera.

A fortnight ago, Mitch was over the moon: birth of his first child, the Leafs disposing of the Ottawa Senators. That world has been turned on its head: “Sadness obviously, depression.’’

There have been few local boys more thrilled about being a Leaf. “It’s meant everything,’’ he said, up against the firing wall. “They took maybe a risky pick on a small kid from º£½ÇÉçÇø¹ÙÍøand I’m forever grateful to be able to wear this Maple Leaf and be a part of some of the great legends here. I’ve never taken a day for granted. I’ve always loved it.’’

But the burden on Marner has become intolerable. And yes, that small kid can’t play a big playoff game, ragdolled by the opposition. That $14-million-a-year (U.S.) range contract he’s seeking can best be spent on a No. 1 defenceman, an Aaron Ekblad or Vladislav Gavrikov, but frankly there’s no blue-ribbon D-man in this free-agent pool.

Fed-up dismay in Leaf Nation is entirely justified. Go ahead, get it all out of your system. Everybody out there is a GM genius.

But you’ll come back whether the Leafs roll it back or not. Because they’re your darlings, more’s the everlasting pity.