it’s over Finally.
The seven-year journey that brought together Brendan Shanahan and Kyle Dubas, along with Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, to form a Leafs team that was simultaneously the best of modern times and its biggest failure — that story ends tonight. Or maybe Friday. Or maybe a few days after. But definitely soon.
It ends in two ways. Either coming up with one of the greatest comebacks in playoff history, as a team that can’t win when it comes down to it, finding a way to make it four straight and finally, mercifully, permanently destroying its own well-deserved reputation for always downplaying the moment . Or it ends in defeat, perhaps even humiliating defeat, at which point the process of tearing it all down finally begins.
Two paths that lead in opposite directions, but only one goal: in one way or another, it is the end of an era. This is finally over.
If you’re a Maple Leafs fan, you’re probably thinking: Praise Wendel. We can’t take this anymore. just let it end
And that’s why today, as we count down the hours to Game 4, it shouldn’t feel like a funeral. If anything, this is a celebration. hug it We’ll get out no matter which way it goes. Either the front doors of this prison will be flung open or it will collapse around us, but either way we will finally see the sun. It may be just a few hours away. And it’s a good thing.
So this is what you get today. No grim pre-mortems where we say goodbye to a team that’s technically still alive but headed for an inevitable crushing defeat. (I did that back in 2021.) No arguing about how hard it was to love this team. (So did I earlier this season.) No menacing threats about who deserves what if it all ends badly. (I did that a few weeks ago.) Not even a yell about how unfair it all was. (I… well, that was pretty much my entire writing career.)
And not even an analysis of how everything went wrong. That may only be a few hours away, and when that moment comes, you’ll be flooded with responses on the subject. Some of mine may already be pre-written. What can I tell you, this team will teach you about efficiency.
But that’s not for the moment. It’s game day, maybe the last of the season and maybe the last of the era. You Leafs fans know the exercise by now. And the fear. One more time in the ditch, dear friends, one more time.
But I just can’t bring myself to add another helping of silent heartache to this team. I’m done. I’m terrified. I guess I can’t be a playoff opponent in a crucial game because this Maple Leafs team beat me.
My very first contribution to The Athletic dates back to 2016 when the story was just beginning. The Leafs had just drafted Auston Matthews – there he is at the top of the page, without a mustache, with an incredible baby face – and optimism was everywhere. Matthews had scored four goals on his debut. Marner looked good. Ditto for fellow rookie player William Nylander. Just a few months after the final demise, we wondered how long it would be before we would return to the postseason. We didn’t know it yet, but it should happen in the first year. It was a great time being a fan. I used the word “fun” four times in this piece.
And then I wrote this: “It’s all good. But it’s fleeting. You get one year of this, Leaf fans, and only one. It will be gone before you know it.”
Sometimes I hate being right.
You all know what came next. They lost six games that year to the Capitals, then embarked on an almost unimaginable streak of five straight years that saw them lead in the postseason to a game where the winner had to decide everything. You lost every single one.
And along the way we learned all the beats by heart. John Tavares and his thousand-meter gaze. The Nylander Defense Zone flies by. Sheldon Keefe and his post-game press conference about how once again they failed to start on time or play a full 60 minutes and isn’t it a shame they didn’t have someone whose job it was, how do they say, to train? break these habits.
That brief moment when you wonder if Matthews is even playing tonight. Marner handles the puck with the grace and composure of a kid farming mats in Fortnite. The ubiquitous and endlessly entertaining guessing game, Predict the bad ass goal. And then, inevitably, Dubas stands before the media and vows to do it again. No changes required. Why bother with success?
And then they finally won this year. Not the trophy, you fool, you idiot, but at least a round. They didn’t necessarily deserve it against the Lightning, but nobody cared. The leaps finally went their way, the other team’s keeper finally had a slump instead of an impromptu transformation into Jacques Plante, and there was even a missed high-stick penalty that went in their favor. Honestly, the last game felt a little clumsy from the hockey gods, but we took it.
They had finally made it to Round 2. What was the worst that could happen?
And now this. Of course that. Of course, the Leafs would be the only team to have even fewer playoff successes than them over the past two decades. Of course, they would be the favorites and would be up against a wildcard team who should just be happy to be a part of it. Of course, it would be the league’s most overpaid and vilified goaltender and seedy coach who should never have been hired, and the entire 2014 draft class save for the one who’s worth it. Of course, all the settings were wrong. Of course it’s 3-0. Of course it’s over.
Or it’s not over yet and the comeback is starting now. In a weird way, that would fit too. Would it mean the hockey gods had something worse in mind for the next chapter? Definitely, but we’ll drive the 18-wheeler off the bridge when we get there. The point is that it could happen. Toronto Maple Leafs fans never get what we want, and right now a lot of us just want this team gone, so do the math.
The most likely scenario is the one that would fit this team’s recent pattern: they win tonight, they look great doing it, we all get a little glimmer of hope again, and then they come back on home ice for game five on Friday and totally soaks her bedclothes. That feels like a brand, doesn’t it? The Leafs team only come through when everyone has counted them out — when they were three to a game against the Bruins in 2018, when they were three goals down in 2020 after losing Game 1 to the Blue Jackets late in the third game to Montreal, after the Zamboni game, after that year’s disastrous loss in Game 1 to the Lightning.
The same old Leafs, you say, and they reply, Not this time! They rise off the mat, they fight back, they earn back a little of your respect, and they make you wonder if the narratives are finally turning into themselves. And then they reply: Just kidding!
It will probably continue like this. Or maybe we’ll see the epic comeback after all. Or maybe they’ll just spare us all the drama, don’t show up again tonight, kick in the doors, and end the season. Who knows? Who cares anyway?
The point is, this time you shouldn’t go through the day on an upset stomach. Don’t be afraid, embrace it. Have fun with it. Throw all superstitions out the door. change everything Swap jerseys with your child, even if they are still small children. Especially if they are small children.
Allow yourself to believe, at least begin. And then allow yourself to turn against them when they deserve it, at least in the end. (Never underestimate the joy of a good hate show.) But no sweaty hands. No icy silence for friends and family. No begging of the hockey gods for mercy. You’ve been trying for seven years; You know her answer.
And most important of all, do not grieve for this ending that is unfolding before us, for it must end. This ridiculous era of this ridiculous team is adrift on a burning Viking ship and it’s a finer day than any other to get to Valhalla. Go Leafs go, and then they stay away one way or another.
(Photo by Auston Matthews and Mitchell Marner: Claus Andersen/Getty Images))