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TORONTO — During Mitch Marner’s ultimate shift as a Toronto Maple Leaf, which went on method too lengthy, the lovers of the hockey crew he grew up loving booed when his blade touched the puck.
Exhausted via a hopeless six-on-five shift that dragged on for 106 seconds and crushed down via a Jumbotron blaring the similar rating, 6-1, that brought about the primary sleepless night time of a ordinary nightmare, Marner gave up the puck and glided to the Scotiabank Arena house bench for the final time on Sunday.
But first the ones magical edges of his needed to dodge every other copy sweater that were chucked at the ice in the course of motion. Those blades needed to float via a brown patch of exploded beer that were introduced in disgust prior to the celebrity took a seat on a bench that were focused via the similar overpriced home product.
For president Brendan Shanahan.
It ends with an unsightly, tragic, torture theatre observers of this ordinary, cussed and supremely gifted wearing experiment will swear they noticed coming, but nonetheless in finding arduous to snatch as reality and now not some in poor health comic story.
After Toronto’s core squandered a 2-0 collection result in the Florida Panthers and no-showed in Game 5, they discovered a pulse and fed their lovers another spoonful of hope in an all-hands-on-deck Game 6. Open up and say ahhh.
Then they yanked the rug everywhere once more. Another 6-1 loss at the chewed-up, Molson-sloshed house ice they fought so arduous to earn over 82 video games, this loss tying the biggest margin of defeat via any house crew in a Game 7 ever.
It ends with gallows-humour “Let’s go Blue Jays!” chants from a sold-out-but-filing-out crowd.
It ends with thousand-mile, multi-million-dollar stares.
And it ends with a actually spitting-mad Marner educating his teammates to “Wake the (expletive) up!”
The phrases of a person who registered a blended general of 3 pictures over his ultimate 5 video games as a Leaf, who went minus-5 over the Panthers’ 4 wins, and who will quickly obtain the kind of lift that makes him one of the handsomely paid athletes within the recreation.
But now not right here. Not on this the town.
Especially now not after what has transpired over the last week.
The harm is just too deep. The accept as true with went poof.
Turns out, Springfield didn’t want that monorail finally.
“I mean, I’m feeling the same way. It’s sad. It’s heartbreaking,” Marner mentioned, after hugging some body of workers and teammates in the back of closed doorways. “We’re not happy with that outcome either.”
And whilst Marner didn’t say he’d be elevating his new child son Miles someplace some distance clear of the failure and vitriol, the pending unrestricted unfastened agent gave no indication post-game that he desires to stay giving ’er the ol’ faculty take a look at.
Asked what being a Leaf has intended to him, Marner spoke previously traumatic.
“Everything,” he started. “Took maybe a risky pick on a small kid from Toronto and been forever grateful to be able to wear this Maple Leaf and be a part of some of the great legends here. So, never taken a day for granted and always loved it.”
Tonight, after Marner’s inner most playoff run (seven wins) culminated in every other Game 7 defeat, love is tempered.
“Sadness, obviously. Depression,” Marner mentioned. “Pretty devastated with what just happened.”
Imagine an international the place a supremely proficient and distinctive ability will get selected via his favorite boyhood crew, mechanically hits or nears 100 issues, all the time makes the playoffs, or even will get nominated for a Selke, he’s so just right defensively.
Surely, that child could be liked via the entire the town. They’d need him to re-sign, and he’d need that too.
Now believe if that child and his fellow stars — Auston Matthews, John Tavares, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly — dig in and fetch best greenback on the negotiating desk and, with the rigid religion of a president who doesn’t know when to stroll clear of a nasty wager, win best two post-season collection in 9 years. Nine.
They pass 0-for-6 in Game 7s and 0-for-7 in winner-take-all postseason video games.
Well, if that’s the case, now not even Matthews was once keen to make use of the phrase sure when requested if he hopes Marner returns in 2025-26: “He’s like a brother to me and to all of us. I think we’re a very tight-knit group, and we obviously love him to death. That’s all I can really say about that.”
All the captain may just say about Sunday’s scene?
“I don’t know how it really got away on us. Just not on the same page,” mentioned Matthews, who attempted pointing to a just right 10 mins in Period 1. “I just thought we had too many passengers throughout the rest of the game and weren’t on the same page.”
Outside of his big name flip in Game 6, Matthews was once regularly a type of passengers himself.
“I can’t explain right now, nor do I want to, (Games) 5 and 7 at home. That’s obviously things that we got to look at and talk about as an organization,” trainer Craig Berube mentioned. “For me, it’s all between the ears. It’s a mindset. These guys are capable of doing it.”
Not in combination a minimum of. Not anymore. Not when it issues.
“I don’t think it’s because people don’t care. I think it’s … I don’t know what exactly. But I just don’t think we had our best stuff in the most important game of the season. That’s unacceptable,” Rielly mentioned.
Also flawed. It has been applicable.
Under Shanahan, Leafs control has approved all of this core’s crunch-time shrivelling and rewarded it with raises and business coverage.
And now that very same entrance place of job will watch the most efficient asset in the summertime of 2025 stroll for 0 go back.
That Berube shaped a line centred via Matthews and flanked via pending UFAs Marner and Tavares in Period 3 was once like studying the final stanza of a sad poem.
“They were the better team tonight. They were the more desperate team tonight. They were the more aggressive team,” Berube mentioned. “You got to have a level of desperation, determination. And I didn’t feel we had it.”
Please don’t get us twisted.
The Panthers are an improbable crew; they deserve credit score right here. Toronto’s stars are extremely professional; they are going to neatly get their rings someday, like Phil Kessel and Nazem Kadri did. Berube and GM Brad Treliving did a heckuva activity making improvements to the defence and enforcing a extra playoff-suitable recreation plan; they will have to be secure.
But the scars for the 5 longest-serving Leafs can’t be healed, and the monitor file of the president who refused to get a divorce the band is just too tainted.
The milk had already spoiled, they usually served it to us anyway.
“If you look at the heat this team catches, it’s actually really unfortunate,” mentioned Brad Marchand, the oldest and absolute best participant within the collection. “They’ve been running at construction one thing in reality giant right here for some time, they usually have been a distinct logo of hockey this yr.
“They’re getting crucified, and I don’t think it’s justified. Just because they weren’t able to do it. I mean, we’re a really good, deep team too, you know? And that’s how things go sometimes.”
Sometimes. Not 9 occasions.
Remember: the Leafs’ absolute best avid gamers have been all wholesome and of their high. They weren’t undone via a blueline afraid to dam pictures or a goalie who couldn’t prevent a beachball.
“What’s great for the league is hard for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their players. The passion for the Toronto Maple, the scrutiny these men are under is why everybody else gets paid so much. It’s a driver. There’s a cost to it — for them. There’s a challenge. Yeah, you can hit one out of the park here, and then you’re never buying lunch for the rest of your life, right?” mentioned Paul Maurice, who coached right here as soon as, prior to profitable in other places.
“But there is a value for those guys, for his or her households. When you lose a recreation like this, it’ll be tough on them. You undergo an entire bunch of items that aren’t flawed — yet they’re flawed as a result of they misplaced.
“This is a much better team than we played two years ago. Much better. It’s a much better team than we played 23 years ago in the conference final (when Maurice coached the Carolina Hurricanes). This team is in that group of teams — like ours — where there’s 11 this year. Then there’s eight. They have a chance. That’s one of those teams. So, you’re going to assign a whole bunch of character flaws that just aren’t true.”
What’s true is the compositional flaw in Toronto’s roster, its tradition, its mindset. And the folly in having the hubris to consider the ones flaws didn’t exist within the face of annual proof.
So, Mitch Marner, do you continue to consider on this core? Do you need every other shot?
“We’ll see what happens,” Marner answered.
Ironically, the crew given 9 lives were given clawed to loss of life via the Cats.
Which leads us to the one logical conclusion: Run it again!
• Tavares spent seven years with the Maple Leafs. Over the process that contract, he scored 222 objectives and racked up 493 issues within the common season. He added every other 31 playoff issues, together with a series-clinching purpose.
As complete price as he was once right through that run, he’s by no means noticed Round 3.
Unlike Marner, Tavares mentioned unequivocally “yes” he desires to re-sign. There’s no ensure.
“It’s meant everything to me,” the previous captain mentioned. “It was once a large resolution I made seven years in the past, and I’ve liked it. It’s been wonderful for myself and my circle of relatives. So, simply settle for duty we’ve not been ready to come back via and play neatly sufficient to get to the place you need to get to.
“Never gonna quit. Never gonna stop trying.”
• An implausible efficiency via Florida time limit pickup Seth Jones, who was once at his wits’ lead to Chicago previous to the business time limit.
The defenceman logged a game-high 23:42, publish a purpose and an help, had a controversial purpose wiped off the board because of goalie interference, and ripped extra pictures on purpose (4) than any Leaf.
But it was once Jones’s heads-up play to keep away from offside at the Jonah Gadjovich purpose that was once maximum spectacular:
• Marchand improves to 5-0 in playoff collection towards the Maple Leafs. All 5 of the ones went to Game 7.
Marchand scored a purpose, added two assists and was once improbable in his 13th(!) Game 7. He become the primary participant in NHL historical past to defeat one franchise in a minimum of 5 winner-take-all video games.
The 37-year-old Marchand led all skaters with 8 issues in seven video games. The guy is a bona fide Leaf killer.
“The thing about Toronto is, their fans are very in-your-face. So they’re really aggressive, and they let you hear it all the time, and it’s just fun to interact,” Marchand mentioned, starting a post-win soliloquy. “I engage with numerous lovers, and I experience that a part of it.
“We’re dwelling a dream that numerous us by no means concept would by no means in reality transform fact. And, yeah, it is a activity, and it is tricky, and there may be expectancies from the media, from the avid gamers, from the body of workers, the possession, the lovers. But there may be moments that you want to experience. Like, careers fly via, you realize? I’ve been in a very long time, and I’ve been very lucky, and it is nearly over, proper? And, like, I will be able to’t consider how briskly it is long past via. I want I used to be ready to experience extra moments and in truth glance again and take again moments that I took without any consideration. I want I can have them over, yet you do not get that chance.
“I grew up a Leafs fan. I enjoy playing against the Leafs, and I enjoy interacting with fans. It’s fun. It’s not something I’ll forever get to do, and I don’t take myself too seriously. I love getting made fun of; I love making fun of people. And if you can’t take it, then so be it. But I can. So, I’m gonna enjoy the moments that I have.”
Marchand now has the second-most playoff issues towards the Leafs in league historical past, trailing best Gordie Howe.
• Another Leafs Game 7, every other goalie wonder.
Anthony Stolarz backing up Woll was once a stunner.
The goalie didn’t take part within the crew’s morning skate, nor have a stall within the Leafs dressing room Sunday morning.
Until warmup, he had now not practised together with his teammates since going to the medical institution halfway via Game 1. Meanwhile, Matt Murray and Dennis Hildeby were taking NHL pictures all through the collection.
A Hail Mary emotional spice up, most likely?
• A few well-known lovers were given let down.
Justin Bieber and spouse Hailey sat so on the subject of the house bench, they’d’ve made the Savvy Meter video breakdowns — had the pop big name returned to his seat prior to Max Domi scored early in Period 3.
And Drake positioned a $1-million wager on his house crew. The crew from his liked Six peaked in Game 6, sadly.
