April brings crunch time for playoff-cursed Toronto Maple Leafs

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”Wake us when playoffs get here.”

For the jaded of Leafs Nation, burnt by so many first-round follies, that has been their mantra through another flashy regular season.

While the Core Four spent the past six months compiling more impressive numbers — Mitch Marner is nearing 100 points, William Nylander’s career high 40-plus goals, John Tavares knocking 10 years off his birth certificate and Auston Matthews healthy and hot at last, it’s understandable most people were still looking at the calendar.

On April 1, the countdown to playoffs is here and one eye is slowly opening. The Leafs should clinch their spot this week, time to see the true effect of new sheriff Craig Berube and whether soft spots such as the blueline, bottom-six forwards and goaltending depth are really improved for when it matters most.

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What should enliven the Leafs’ final eight games is the Atlantic Division’s first-place hunt, with Toronto still in it despite maddening losses to non-playoff teams. They’ve only seen that high vantage point in their lodge twice in the past 20 years.

As of this week, Leafs control their fate of avoiding defending Stanley Cup champion Florida or the surging Tampa Bay Lightning, facing the Panthers twice (including in Toronto on Wednesday) and the Bolts once.

Photo finishes are hardly new in the Atlantic. Last season, the Panthers nipped the Bruins with 110 points to Boston’s 109 and the Cats drawing wild-card Tampa in the first round to get their Cup express moving quickly. Boston took out third-place Toronto in another excruciating Game 7 overtime, though that series sapped the B’s for the next round versus Florida.

Twice in the early 2000s, Boston beat the Leafs by a point for first. This year, there’s no big, bad Bruins, but be careful what you wish for as top spot would likely set the Leafs or whomever against resurgent Ottawa, which has been in playoff desperation mode for weeks.

One Leaf insisted a few days ago it’s all coming down to the last game of the season on April 17, when Toronto hosts Detroit. That evening the Lightning are in Manhattan with the Rangers possibly still alive, while Florida wraps two nights earlier in Tampa.

Every game in March it seemed was marked by an individual Leaf passing a big name on a franchise list, be it the Core Four or defenceman Morgan Rielly, now a top 10 in games played and shots on goal. But all have downplayed seeing themselves ahead of Charlie Conacher, George Armstrong, Darryl Sittler and Doug Gilmour, knowing that elite group either won Cups or went a few rounds in playoffs.

These Leafs have known only one series win, particularly since 2017-18 when Tavares arrived. And before there’s more fretting over new contracts for Tavares and Marner, it’s on both to make a bigger post-season impact for their own sake and the club’s.

Berube has coached a Cup winner in St. Louis, a well-balanced club that finished third and wore down higher-seeded foes all the way through. He also has tempered comments on the Leafs’ individual success, being just as concerned that Marner and Matthews kill penalties and do the defensive grunt work as he is with their scoring exploits.

On Sunday, the coach was happy to plug his fourth line — Steven Lorentz, David Kampf and Pontus Holmberg — as much as his first when the muckers produced the winning goal. It netted the Leafs five of a possible six points on the California trip.

“They’re huge,” he told media after the game when asked about the unit’s role in playoffs. “Especially a line that go out against some of their top players in checking situations, in penalty kills and driving the identity of your team.”

Lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby