SIMMONS: The great goodbye for Mitch Marner and another Leafs playoff season

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The players stood rather awkwardly in the semi-silence of the Scotiabank Arena, waiting for one last lifeless salute to the hockey fans of Toronto.

One last uncomfortable way of saying goodbye to another playoff season ending too soon.

Mitch Marner was the last to leave the ice.

He looked around and waited for all his Maple Leafs teammates to depart, because a likely departure from home is now part of his immediate future. He waited until the handshakes were over, until the sticks were saluted with all of that post-game discomfort, until everyone but captain Auston Matthews had left the ice.

And then Marner, uncertain of what the future will be, stepped off the ice, just after Matthews, quite possibly for the last time after nine somewhat brilliant seasons, each of which ended badly.

This one ended worse than most. Possibly because the score was Florida Panthers 6, Maple Leafs 1 in Game 7 of this Atlantic Division playoff series. Possibly because a best-of-seven series, with Florida winning four games, the Leafs winning three, ended with the Leafs being outscored 12-2 in their final two home games.

With a victory, the Leafs would have had home-ice advantage for the rest of the playoffs, but there is no rest of the playoffs for them. And in the end, home ice proved to be worth nothing but cash for Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment.

This was another Game 7 defeat for the Leafs. This one uglier than the previous six. In almost all of those games, the Leafs were still alive in the third period of the clinching games. On Sunday night, they were done midway through the second.

They were done and now the question is: Who else is done? Is this the end for Marner as a Maple Leaf, coming up small once again on the biggest of nights These are six Game 7s for Marner, all them defeats for the 90-point career scorer. Six Game 7s and two measly assists to show for it.

This is six Game 7 losses for captain Matthews too, who unlike Marner does not have his contract running out. Matthews has three assists in his Game 7 life, all six of those games losses, as well.

The rather ancient Brad Marchand had three points in the 6-1 win for Florida. The three points were one more than Marner has scored in the six games he’s tried to advance to the next round of the playoffs.

What happened Sunday night? The Leafs again lost their way. They went into Game 7 believing they had a chance against the Stanley Cup-champion Panthers and came away with their collective faces slapped: One team understands what it is to be champion. The other was not close to that level, not when it mattered most.

It wasn’t just Marner playing perhaps his final game as a Leaf. The former captain, John Tavares, the straight line of a centre who never stopped surprising people, might have, as well. He, too, is a free agent. His future will be determined over the next six weeks.

Tavares was clear about wanting to remain a Leaf. Marner was not so clear.

“It’s meant everything to me,” Tavares said of his time in Toronto. “It was a big decision I made seven years ago and I’ve loved it. It’s been amazing for myself and my family.”

Marner was not as definitive about his preference for the future.

He called the Game 7 loss “sad and depressing.”

“I don’t have any thoughts right now.” Marner said of the future. “Pretty devastated with what just happened. Devastated. Always enjoyed this team.”

He said that using the past tense, which was likely unintentional.

“Like I said, I haven’t thought about anything,” he added. “I just come here every day and try to put my best foot forward, trying to win the ultimate goal.”

In the nine seasons since this rebuild and rebrand that Brendan Shanahan began, the Leafs have lost in the first round of the playoffs seven times, and the second round twice. This was their first time to Game 7 of the second round. They played a sound and smart Game 6 to force the Game 7.

But it’s almost impossible to win a playoff series — any series — when you score only four goals in the final four games. Three of them defeats.

What didn’t the Leafs have in the end? Just about everything. Sasha Barkov was better than Matthews in Game 7. The Panthers’ brilliant third line of Anton Lundell, Eetu Luostarinen and Marchand overwhelmed the Leafs. Florida’s Hall of Fame goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky was the best goalie on the ice, and the best in the series: Over the final four and a half games of the series — the final 14 periods of the Toronto season — the Leafs were outscored 18-5 by the champions.

One team looking like it can win again this year. Another looking rather clueless and empty at the largest of moments.

“We just didn’t handle the pressure,” Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube said. “Obviously that (effort) wasn’t good enough … I can’t explain Games 5 and 7 at home.

“To me, that’s the disappointing part.”

He then said the Leafs didn’t have enough “desperation or determination.” And with that: “Frustration sets in.”

It set in for the players, for the fans, probably set in for the city. This isn’t same-old, same-old anymore. With a new coach, a second-year general manager, an almost rebuilt defence and home-ice advantage, this is worse.

Expectations were higher.

And in the end, near silence. They had to pipe in cheering sounds at Scotiabank Arena because what was left of the attendance was all but out of applause. And when Marner walked from the ice, the last Leaf to leave, there wasn’t much left for anyone to shout. They had booed his final few shifts of Game 7, every time he touched the puck.

That was the Leafs fans way — those still in the building — of saying goodbye.

ssimmons@postmedia.com

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