SIMMONS: Maple Leafs are done like dinner in series with Panthers
Leafs displayed nothing resembling grit, tenacity, intensity or hockey intelligence in Game 5
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It’s over. You can cheer for the Maple Leafs, love the Maple Leafs, follow them with all your heart, but you have to know that the wall has been hit in this series with the Florida Panthers.
And it’s been hit really hard.
And you know that the Stanley Cup champions have the Leafs exactly where they need them to be.
One game away from elimination.
One loss away from locker clean out day, which may be Mitch Marner’s last day as a Maple Leaf and John Tavares too.
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SIMMONS: Maple Leafs are done like dinner in series with Panthers Back to video
There is still time for all those individual stories to be written and determined, but before that and until then, the Leafs have to play again Friday night against a Panthers team that tore them apart in Game 5, piece by piece, period by period, loose puck by loose puck. In every conceivable way.
The Panthers look to be on their way, quite possibly, to another trip to the Stanley Cup Final. Their third straight time doing this.
They are that strong, that deep, that commanding, and that physical. There is no shame in losing to this Panthers team. There is only shame in losing without anything resembling a competitive response put forward by the Leafs.
This was a heavyweight knockout by the Panthers, and the only reason it lasted all of 60 minutes is there are no stopping games in hockey.
This was a home playoff game lost with the market as excited and energized — and nervous even — as it has been in years for probably the deepest Leafs team of the Brendan Shanahan era. Yet this was a home playoff game without any real Toronto answer, without speed or intensity, without energy or pride.
The Leafs played tough and message-sending hockey in the final minute of the 6-1 loss. What they didn’t do was play tough and message-sending hockey when it mattered most on Wednesday night.
Captain Auston Matthews didn’t score for the Leafs, again, but he was not alone. The Leafs didn’t score any goal until there was 66 seconds left in this foregone conclusion. The goal came after they were shut out in Florida in Game 4 and after they left a 3-1 lead behind in Game 3 and have never really recovered since.
Way back then, just a few days ago, the Leafs were in position to win the series. Or be close to winning the series. Now, they are in position to fly to Florida, spend a night in a fine hotel, have a great meal, and get up Friday morning and get ready to play for their hockey lives on Friday night.
They should have been playing for their very own survival Wednesday night but instead displayed nothing resembling grit, tenacity, intensity or hockey intelligence. That’s what seemed to bother coach Craig Berube the most late Wednesday night.
“They were fast, they were on us, they were hungrier,” said Berube. He could have gone on. The rest of his adjectives will likely be saved for his players, individually and otherwise, between now and game time for Game 6 Friday night.
Matthews didn’t score. Mitch Marner didn’t score. William Nylander, with two partial breakaways, didn’t score. John Tavares didn’t score. Forty-seven million dollars worth of hockey talent didn’t find the net — again.
Here’s among those who scored for Florida. Dimitry Kulikov. Niko Mikkola. A.J. Greer. Jesper Boqvist. Combined salary $5.5 million or about $40% of Matthews’ annual take home.
Clearly Matthews is frustrated he isn’t scoring. He knows what’s expected of him. He knows what he expects of himself. The Leafs as a team are frustrated they aren’t scoring. Marner is frustrated he isn’t setting anybody up and his own frustration was evident on one of Florida’s second period goals.
He made a weak attempt to clear the puck from the Leafs end, lost it instead, didn’t bother to pick up Boqvist, who was heading by himself to the net. An apparently great defensive player doesn’t make that soft a play.
But soft plays hindered the Leafs all night in Game 5. It’s OK for the Leafs to get beaten by a better team. There is no shame in that. But for to be outworked and outhustled that they have no real answer for.
It’s not OK for this team — so loved and so followed and so much a part of so many lives — to give the home fans nothing to cheer for on a must-win night. The Leafs left the ice to boos at the end of the second period and at the end of the game.
“I don’t think we gave them much reason to stick around,” said Matthews.
Said Nylander: “I understand it.” Everyone understood it. “Six-one in a playoff game or 6-nothing.”
And two lockers were rather empty on one side of the Leafs dressing room. Marner’s locker right beside the former captain Tavares. Both are free agents come July. Their season, and possibly their tenure with the Leafs, on the line tomorrow night.
Who knows what else may be on the line should the Leafs exit the playoffs this meekly?
“No thoughts of that at all,” said Marner, not saying what’s on his mind. “It’s going to be a roller coaster of a ride. We’ll take it shift by shift and win a hockey game …
“Tonight was the first night we didn’t really play our game.”
That’s his story. In the last two and a half games, the Leafs have been outscored 11-1 by the Panthers. That’s indicative of a series tilting in the wrong direction for Toronto. That’s indicative of a Florida team that has discovered precisely how to beat the Maple Leafs.
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