Morgan Rielly held back tears after the Maple Leafs lost, and he was not the only one.
The heartbroken players huddled in the Toronto Maple Leafs dressing room, to the gut wrench blow taken by a fan base that has not held a Stanley Cup title since 1967, the downcast mood was enough to go around on Friday.
They had lost an opportunity.
The moment Nick Cousins forward to the Florida Panthers scored against the Maple Leafs goaltender Joseph Woll at 15:32 of overtime to give the Panthers a 3-2 victory at Scotiabank Arena, Toronto sobered up to the reality of what had happened.
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Toronto’s season was over, they had been knocked out in the best-of-7 Eastern Conference Second Round, a series that most experts predicted that they would win. Now they must come to terms with the reality that major changes could happen to them, both to the roster and in the front office, after a hopeful postseason ended abruptly.
The question now is: Will the nucleus of this roster, headed by Rielly and the “Core Four’’ of forwards John Tavares, Mitchell Marner, Auston Matthews and William Nylander remain intact?
Rielly struggled to control his emotions when answering that question.
“That’s not up to me to decide,” the defenseman said. “We were proud of our regular season and the things we were able to do during the course of it.
“I love these guys … “
He paused for a few minutes as his eyes welled up.
“I don’t want anything to change.”
It may not be up to him to decide, not just because they failed again, but the manner in which they did.
Guaranteed, they won their first Stanley Cup Playoff series in 19 years after winning the Tampa Bay Lightining in six games in the best-of-7 first round. But that series had some alarming underlying problems and they were brought to light when Maple Leafs faced the Panthers.
Toronto went 1-5 at home in the playoffs after going 27-8-6 during the regular season. The team could not score more than two goals in any of its final seven playoff games after ending 11th in the NHL in goals (279) during the regular season.
Matthews, who had 40 goals in the regular season, did not score any in the second round. Tavares who had 36 goals in the regular season, could not score goals either. Matter of fact, wuth Nylander’s two goals and Marner’s one goal in five games against Florida, the “Core Four’’ concluded with only three goals.
But the situation is beyond the players.
What’s next for Kyle Dubas who watched Toronto go 1-5 in playoff since he became general manager May 11, 2018?
The same question can be asked about Sheldon Keefe. Since he became coach November 20, 2019, Toronto is 1-4 in postseason series.
Keefe made no excuses for his part. The team’s downfall, he said, began when the Maple Leafs lost the first three games against Florida, giving them “zero margin for error.’’
“It’s going to take time for the sting of this series to wear off,” he said. “This is a missed opportunity for our group.
“You can’t take away anything from Florida. They did a great job. But we were in positions to win in Games 1, 2 and 3 and didn’t handle that well. So, that stings.
“I love how our team didn’t lay down. Instead, [it was] the opposite of that in Game 4. The way the team came together, to me, was incredible progress for our group at that moment.”
But, all their efforts were not enough.
“I believe we had a team good enough to win the Stanley Cup,” Keefe said. “And we didn’t do that.”
Dubas played his part before the NHL Trade Deadline on March 3 to bring in pieces that should have made the Maple Leafs a tough team to play against in the postseason. Forwards Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Acciari came in from the St. Louis Blues; forward Sam Lafferty and defenseman Jake McCabe from the Chicago Blackhawks, and defenseman Luke Schenn joined from the Vancouver Canucks. In the end, they carried Toront to win one series, but not the four needed to arrive at the ultimate goal.
Kyle was not offered an extension last summer, which meant he was in the last year of his contract.
So, what happens now?
For Matthews, he has one year left on his contract. The Maple Leafs may start negotiating an extension with him on July 1. Will he take the offer? And, will Dubas still be the General Manager by then?
The most thrilling question for htis team is” What happened that the offense, headed by the “Core Four’’, failed? Despite all the great appearances and performing well defensively in the series, blocking shots and delivering hits, Matthews was held to only two assists against the Panthers.
“We dug ourselves in a hole there,” he said of the series. “And it’s all on us, shooting ourselves in the foot at times. We obviously were down 3-0, but I don’t think there was one second [when] we doubted if we took it one game at a time and we played to our ability, we could claw our way back.”
But, as Matthewes said, “We couldn’t get the job done.”
“It’s tough,” he said. “This is the tightest group I’ve played with in my seven years. Some really great teammates. Some really great people.
“It stings, obviously, to go out like that and not get an opportunity to get another crack at it with all these guys.”
A crack the Maple Leafs roster may never experience again.
