This Game 7 loss is a different type of disappointment, failure for Maple Leafs

Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov (35) skates off the ice after the Boston Bruins won in overtime in game 7 of the first round of the 2024 Stanley Cup Playoffs at TD Garden.

The Toronto Maple Leafs invented a new way to lose a Game 7 and crush their fans.

Thanks to David Pastrnak’s goal just two minutes into overtime on Saturday night, the Boston Bruins were able to eliminate the Maple Leafs in the first round and set the wheels in motion for what could be a chaotic offseason in Toronto.

This is the seventh first-round loss in eight years for this Maple Leafs’ core, and at some point, enough has to be enough. Whether it is a change behind the bench, major changes to the roster, or both, the Maple Leafs can not keep hoping for a different result with the same process.

The thing about this particular loss though is this clearly was not the Maple Leafs’ best team of the past eight years. Losing to a Boston team that finished ahead of them in the standings and beat them in every regular season meeting isn’t exactly an upset.

But Toronto still felt like it had something here. It overcome a 3-1 series deficit by winning Games 5 and 6 without the services of their best player, Auston Matthews. Then they got Matthews back for Game 7 of the series on Saturday. They also stumbled upon a white-hot goalie in those two games with Joseph Woll stopping 94 out of 96 shots in back-to-back 2-1 wins.

They had suddenly shifted all of the pressure onto a Bruins team that was clearly rattled and trying to avoid the embarrassment of becoming the first major North American sports franchise to ever lose a 3-1 series lead in consecutive seasons.

In a cruel twist, the Maple Leafs learned on Saturday that Woll would not be available — even as a backup — because of an injury he suffered late in that Game 6 win. That sent Ilya Samsonov, who had lost his starting job earlier in the series, back into the crease.

Then they scored the first goal (something that results in a win in 75% of the Game 7s in NHL history) with under eight minutes to play in regulation.

They still found a way to lose.

While it would be unfair to place blame on him for Saturday’s loss, his performance earlier in the series certainly hurt.

There was also the fact that Toronto’s power play was a mess the entire series, converting on just 4.6 percent of its opportunities.

That helped result in an offense that scored more than two goals just once in the series and never scored more than three goals. Going back to last year’s playoffs the Maple Leafs — one of the league’s highest-scoring teams in the regular season — scored more than two goals in just five of their 18 playoff games, and only once in the past 14 playoff games. That is not good enough. That, more than anything, is what might inspire change. Or should inspire change.

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