'This one stings.' Requiem for a contender/pretender

A Toronto Maple Leafs team that was supposedly 'good enough to win the Stanley Cup' failed to make it halfway through the Stanley Cup playoffs. Something has to change. It just has to

Will Sheldon Keefe be back as the coach of the Toronto Maple Leafs next season?

The Toronto Maple Leafs displayed an enormous amount of resilience, structure and poise at a time when everyone knew there was no way they were ultimately going to pull themselves out of the hole they had dug in the second round of the playoffs. And among all of the shortcomings of this roster and this management team, that might be the most glaring indictment of both of them.

After the Leafs lost Game 5 in overtime against the Florida Panthers to end their season, coach Sheldon Keefe lamented the lost opportunity. And he should have. There was a very clear and navigable path to the Stanley Cup final for this team and, as it has done so many times before with these core executives and players, failed to take advantage of the opportunity that presented itself. Shame on them for doing that.

“I believe we had a team that was good enough to win the Stanley Cup and we didn’t do that,” Keefe said. “This one stings.”

It should. A team that was supposedly good enough to win the Stanley Cup basically squeaked out of the first round after being outplayed in the majority of the games. It then failed to make it even halfway through the NHL playoff tournament, falling to a team that, right down to Radko Gudas holding Calle Jarnkrok’s stick on the overtime goal, thoroughly manhandled the Leafs, led by a coach who is experienced enough to know that the referees call maybe 10 percent of the infractions that occur. And that’s being generous. Once again, the moment was too big for them.

And what makes this such an indictment of the Maple Leafs from top to bottom is that this is not the first rodeo for any of them – not for president Brendan Shanahan, not for GM Kyle Dubas, not for Keefe, not for the Core Four of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, John Tavares and William Nylander. They’ve known - or should have known - for years that there has been something is lacking in this group, either in mental or actual toughness, and they’ve been steadfast in their ways, plowing ahead as though someday they were going to prove everyone wrong.

The Leafs are one of the most image-conscious organizations in professional sports. They say all the right things, support all the right causes, wear all the right T-shirts. But why is that a guy Dubas knows full well what the style of play in the playoffs is, then yells and screams and throws water bottles and slams doors when his team gets run over in the post-season? Where is their Radko Gudas? Well, in October of 2020, Gudas was an unrestricted free agent and after less than a month on the job, Panthers GM Bill Zito signed the then-30-year-old to a three year deal worth $7.5 million. By the time the playoffs had come around, Dubas had amassed nine defencemen, but nobody could seem to find six of them who could play in the playoffs.

So now the Leafs will go through the annual ritual of looking inward and deciding who keeps their jobs and who doesn’t. Nobody who has a rational mind would suggest scorching the Earth here, but to run it back with all the same people in key positions would be ridiculous after this many failures. Of Shanahan, Dubas and Keefe, at least one of them should not be with the organization when it opens training camp next September. But that decision will have to be made soon because Dubas does not have a contract after June 30. If you’re not going to give him an extension, there is no way he should be making the crucial decisions for this organization going forward. If he’s going to insist on retaining Keefe if he does want to come back, perhaps it’s time for both of them to leave. Or maybe ‘The Shanaplan’ has run its course.

Of Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander, one of them has to go. Tavares is untradeable. A wonderful human being loaded with integrity, but a declining player on an onerous contract. Nylander and defencemen Morgan Rielly were by far the best players throughout the playoffs. And even though Nylander would be the easiest to trade because of his contract, he’s probably earned the right to stay.

That leaves one of Marner or Matthews. Take your pick because, in many ways, they were equally not-good-enough against the Panthers. Both have been stellar in regular seasons, and just when you thought they were changing the narrative about their playoff performances, they turn in a series where they combine for zero goals. One of those enormous decisions going forward is going to be whether or not to try to extend Matthews’ contract before his no-trade clause kicks in this summer. Should the Leafs at least consider dealing away a player who won the Hart Trophy in 2021-22 and scored 40 goals in a down year? They absolutely must consider it at this point. After so many disappointments, neither he nor Marner should be considered untouchable.

Neither Steve Yzerman nor Alex Ovechkin won his first Stanley Cup until he was 32 years old, so there’s that. Their organizations stuck with them through a myriad of playoff failures and were rewarded for doing so. Perhaps that will happen in Toronto, too. One day. But Ovechkin was on his fifth coach by the time he won and Yzerman was on his sixth. It does take time to get things right. But it also requires some difficult decisions to be made along the way. And the Leafs are at this point in their cycle.

Whether the Maple Leafs win a championship down the road or end up like the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks, great organizations that watched their championship window open and close with nothing to show for it, could very well depend on what difficult choices they make between now and next season.