Maple Leafs’ seven-minute cave in spirals into Game 7 crisis

TORONTO — For 48 hours, it swung like a pendulum. The hypotheticals, the what-ifs. The maybes and hopefully-nots.

It would cross best considered one of two techniques for those Toronto Maple Leafs. Win this do-or-die finale and cement this marketing campaign as the only the place all of it became, the person who introduced actual development, that perpetually altered legacies — or fall brief once more and invite the vultures ready to rip this complete factor aside, to finish this blue-and-white generation for just right, to hold it away over the horizon.

That’s the object about Game 7s. There isn’t any center floor. There are not any do-overs. It’s a zero-sum struggle — glory or disaster. 

And Sunday night time, underneath the Scotiabank Arena lighting, in a cauldron of drive and nerves and the entire faint trust this town may just organize, the Maple Leafs may just best muster the latter.

“They were the better team tonight,” mentioned a terse Craig Berube of the Florida Panthers after the mud had settled at the 6-1 drubbing, finishing this sequence and most likely this bankruptcy of Maple Leafs historical past too. “They have been the extra determined staff this night. They have been the extra competitive staff this night. That’s what I take out of the sport. 

“You win a Game 6, that’s great — you come home, you’ve got to have a level of desperation, determination. And I didn’t feel we had it.”

It doesn’t take too thorough an exam of the sport movie to pinpoint the place all of it went south for the house aspect on this one. After a dominant opening salvo from the Cats was once matched with a breakaway-laden reaction from the Leafs within the opening duration, the 2 golf equipment got here out after the primary intermission sitting stage at the scoresheet, feeling slightly stage off it.

And then the protecting champs driven once more. And this time, they toppled the entire blue-and-white space of playing cards over.

“First period, I thought they came out a little bit hungrier than us. The last half of that period, we got our game going. And then, yeah — I don’t really know how it got away from us,” Auston Matthews mentioned quietly from the locker room overdue Sunday.

“I liked our end of the first period — the second, you know, we gave them opportunities,” echoed linemate Mitch Marner. “And they didn’t miss.”

It was once defender Seth Jones, in particular, who didn’t omit. Three mins into the center body, after Matthews and Marner charged into the Panthers’ zone and controlled to arrange just a level shot that deflected off linemate Matthew Knies and skittered into the nook, Florida picked up the puck and became at the Leafs.

They moved north in a show of veteran precision, Aleksander Barkov sending the puck previous Matthews up the forums to Evan Rodrigues, who moved it directly to Jones with a spinning backhand off the forums — the Cats defender amassed it, carried it into Toronto’s zone, subsidized off Brandon Carlo, and stressed out it over Joseph Woll’s shoulder.

The crowd, raucous to that time, fell right into a worried murmur. And the Cats simply stored coming.

Four mins later, they drew blood once more. This time, it was once veteran Leaf-killer Brad Marchand authoring the collection, charging down the left wing with the puck, darting across the offensive zone to hyperlink play between Florida’s forecheckers, peppering Woll — till in the end the puck got here to Marchand alongside the half-wall. No. 63 whipped it on internet, spurring a hefty rebound from Woll, and watched younger linemate Anton Lundell tuck it house.

By this level, the murmurs had became to groans, the believers to doubters. The ghosts have been circling. And nonetheless, the Panthers twisted the knife.

Just two mins later, a 3rd function for the guests. A John Tavares solo zone go out effort was once intercepted by means of Jones and became again the opposite direction. An preliminary probability on Woll careened off the netminder’s pads and instantly to A.J. Greer, who stressed out it around the crease to a ready Jonah Gadjovich. Like No. 16 mentioned, he didn’t omit.

Seven mins, 3 targets, most likely the worst duration those Maple Leafs have strung in combination all season — and a chain sunk.

“Obviously there was a period there where they get three, and we’re not able to weather the storm, or push back,” mentioned Morgan Rielly of the second-frame stumble. “In there somewhere is a pretty crucial part of the game.”

“I felt like we were ready to play. I felt like we were in a good mindset,” Matthews lamented. “I assumed the primary 10 mins, they got here out robust, and the following 10 mins I assumed we managed play. And then I simply concept we had too many passengers right through the remainder of the sport. We simply weren’t at the identical web page. 

“You know, they get a couple goals, and momentum, and then you’re chasing the game. And it’s hard to get it back, when you’re down three against a good team that plays sound defensively, like them.”

“That’s the right wording, I would say,” added Marner, whose long term with this membership stays unsure, to position it frivolously. “You can’t have passengers in a Game 7. It just sucks.”

For the entire chatter entering this night time, into this sequence, into those playoffs, in regards to the Maple Leafs being other, it was once a telling efficiency. In many important techniques, those Leafs have been other. Except for one, crucially vital mark — their talent to upward push to the instant when the whole lot is at the line.

They’ve confirmed ready to come back out of the gates flying, as they did during the early video games of each their 2025 sequence. They’ve even confirmed ready to live to tell the tale, to increase their season when their backs are towards the wall. But it’s that age-old killer intuition — that mindset that permits groups to endure down and play with precision when an opportunity at glory’s at the line — that continues to be simply past this crew’s clutch.

Because in point of fact, it wasn’t simply that seven-minute stretch of calamity. It was once the entire thing. 

Through 40 mins, the Maple Leafs had allowed their opponent to acquire extra shot makes an attempt (75) than any staff had thru two sessions in any sport this season — common season or playoffs. By the tip of the night time, after the Cats had tacked on 3 extra targets to in point of fact bury the wayward house membership, the Maple Leafs had matched the report for the most important margin of defeat for any house staff in any Game 7, ever.

“We just didn’t handle the pressure that they came with tonight,” Berube assessed succinctly. “It obviously wasn’t good enough.”

“They just executed a lot better than we did. And, you know, once they got the lead, they kept pressuring us and we didn’t execute well through that,” added Tavares of the center body that skewered the Maple Leafs’ hopes in this night time. “Obviously that led to their lead increasing, us trying to find our game and make up a big hole. Difficult to do against that team.”

What will sting maximum is how acquainted it felt. The proven fact that it was once the second one instantly efficiency on this barn that the Maple Leafs have been blown out 6-1 in a a very powerful post-season sport by means of those Panthers, Sunday’s consequence polishing off a disappointing Part 2 to Wednesday’s Game 5 rout.

“That’s the frustrating part,” Berube mentioned from the post-game podium Sunday, making an attempt to select during the injury. “We put ourselves in a great place in each video games coming house. Disappointing video games needless to say. We cross down there, win a Game 6, play extraordinarily smartly — it’s irritating. I don’t have a solution.

“There’s obviously things that we’ve got to look at and talk about as an organization.”

As the night time wore on, as the conclusion started to vanish, even at the house bench, that exasperation boiled over, the trainer laying into the boys hunched over the forums, Marner doing the similar.

“Frustration sets in,” Berube mentioned. “When you don’t get everyone on board, doing the appropriate issues, taking part in in combination as a staff, that’s what occurs. That’s what occurs. You can’t cross right into a sport like this night and feature any one now not at their highest. And that doesn’t imply, you recognize, fancy performs or these types of professional performs — you’re at your highest while you’re extremely aggressive, profitable your battles, desperation, doing the whole lot imaginable to win the hockey sport. 

“We didn’t do that tonight. And that’s why the result was the result.”

On the opposite aspect of the glass, the Maple Leafs trustworthy made their frustration transparent, too. Made certain the ones at the ice, and at the bench, and within the staff suite, felt each bit in their distress — a sadness so deeply entrenched, so aggressively expressed, even the opposing trainer was once protecting the Maple Leafs by means of the tip of the night.

For the second one instantly sport at Scotiabank Arena, the house aspect skated off the ice with boos dropping rain from the rafters. This time, beer cans got here too, crashing and sputtering onto the sheet, leaving the ice discoloured as the overall mins bled off the clock. And the jerseys too, now not one or two, however handfuls, tossed angrily over the glass as lovers made for the go out, now not bothering to stay round for a scene they’ve already witnessed too again and again over.

“I mean, you feel for it,” mentioned Marner, a place of birth boy himself, of that darkish outpouring from the lovers. “I’m feeling the similar method. It’s unhappy. It’s heartbreaking. It’s one thing you don’t experience. You know, we’re now not proud of that consequence both.

“It’s devastating. We had a great year. Everything was going right. We had a great Game 6, and we fell short again.”