After Game 5 loss, the Maple Leafs can't help but think about the worst-case scenario

Globe and Mail

30-04-2025

Toronto Maple Leafs Oliver Ekman-Larsson looks on as the Toronto Maple Leafs lose to the Ottawa Senators during NHL playoff action in Toronto, on Tuesday, April 29, 2025. Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
A couple of reactions after the series went from Advantage: Leafs to 3-2 and everyone's got a chance now.
'Closing out a series is a very difficult thing to do,' said the Leafs coach. 'There is a reason why it's been this many years.'
'It's good. We'll be alright,' said a Leafs defenceman.
The coach was Sheldon Keefe, the defenceman was Jake Muzzin, the year was 2021 and it absolutely was not alright.
But at 3-2, having failed to close out the Canadiens at home, the Leafs didn't seem scared.
Four years and many disappointments further on, they will be now.
The telling series in Toronto's Game 5 loss to Ottawa on Tuesday encapsulates everything about how things work out for the Leafs once the team starts thinking too hard.
Early in the third period, Ottawa up 1-0. Senator Ridly Greig decides to rugby tackle Mitch Marner at centre ice. Just chased him down and jumped on top of him. Why? Why not, I guess.
Greig gets two minutes. Toronto sets up for the power play. A minute into that, Auston Matthews turns over the puck. That becomes an Ottawa two-on-one. Boom, it's a 2-0 game.
And that is the story how the Toronto Maple Leafs were gifted the dumbest penalty you will ever see at the absolute perfect moment in a pivotal game and turned it into a crushing loss. If this ends up the way it's starting to feel like it could end up, that was when it started.
Every time we get to this position with the Leafs, and we've been doing it for what now seems like all of our adult lives, I think of a scene from a movie.
It's the bit at the end of 'Se7en', where Morgan Freeman opens the box that the affectless serial killer, John Doe, has just had delivered. John Doe is in cuffs. Freeman's character has a gun. But he radios his back-up and says, 'Whatever you hear, stay away. John Doe has control.'
On paper, the Leafs have still got this. They have better, more experienced personnel, several metric tons of human resources spread throughout the organization and 120 minutes in which to leverage them all.
Ottawa is callow, limping and unarmed. But we all know who's in control now.
The Senators have a singular advantage that no other team in the playoffs has - they don't need to believe in themselves. They just need to believe that the Leafs believe it's happening again.
A few lingering shots of the faces on the Leafs bench right after that short-handed goal is the only game tape Ottawa coach Travis Green should show. It will convince them.
Maybe he can throw in the shot of John Tavares stretched out in his own empty goal trying to Kung fu away the second-to-last insult. A lot of Leafs suffer in the playoffs, but whether he's good or bad, none seems to suffer like Tavares. He ends every game looking like he's climbing out of a trench.
After that puck got through Tavares, the building began to empty out. Some of those who remained tried to perk their team's spirits up by booing them relentlessly. Then Ottawa scored again.
Then it ended and everyone went home to figure out how to turn the parade into a funeral march. Just in case.
The Leafs used to have a plan, but there was no sign of it on Tuesday. However this ends for them, it will be accomplished in the midst of another one of their flop sweat eras.
Two factors strike you as significant now - Ottawa goalie Linus Ullmark and the Leafs biggest star, Matthews.
All series long, we've been hearing from Ottawa players about Ullmark's Vezina pedigree. He must be good, their thinking goes, because he was once been voted the league's best goaltender. Except he hasn't been. As Connor Hellebuyck is in the midst of proving again, that particular trophy doesn't mean much in the playoffs.
But on Tuesday, Vezina Ullmark appeared. No more sliding around the net like the ice was frozen on an angle. No more bad reads. Totally zeroed in on target.
If this guy shows up for two more games, Toronto has real problems.
Then there's Matthews. One goal in six games isn't anywhere close to good enough. Since no team is more obsessed with their publicity, the Leafs' solution to that problem was to have Matthews let everyone know that he is injured. Injured how? How dare you ask.
There's a reason most star players do this 'both of my knee caps were unattached' routine at the end of the playoffs - because they expect that to be a great many games away. People may know they're hurt, but they don't want them to know know. That just encourages shenanigans.
Matthews doesn't seem confident on the 'long time to go' score? So why would his teammates feel any different? Watching your number one guy get his excuses prepped beforehand is not exactly 'Once more unto the breach, dear friends,' is it?
If the Leafs win it on Thursday in Ottawa, some things will be forgiven. But the chance to face either Florida teams as the favourite is now gone. The Panthers (probably) and the Lightning (probably not) will both think these are the Leafs they know - erratic, soft, vulnerable.
It's no fun seeing Matthew Tkachuk or Victor Hedman coming at you at the best of times. But when they've got their tails up? Good luck with that. So the uphill part of the playoff slog has already begun.
That's the best case scenario. The worst case is not yet worth contemplating, though you know that regardless of what they say, every single Leaf is currently contemplating it non-stop.