Game 7 gives Maple Leafs one chance to prove doubters wrong

The last piece I wrote talked about how hope has returned to the fans of the Toronto Maple Leafs. Since that piece, the Leafs lost three straight games, the final two of which might be the most pathetic performances ever put on in the National Hockey League.

The Leafs won last night. It wasn’t a dominant performance by any definition of the word, although finally the stars showed some signs of life. Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner played like they actually cared, a far cry from their impotent, embarrassing efforts in games four and five.

On to Game 7

And so we go to another game seven. Somehow, in an extremely tight game, the Leafs managed to weather the storm of the Panthers. Through two periods tonight, there were 27 shots. After his worst performance in the playoffs in Game 5, Joseph Woll stood strong and shut the door.

The top line actually showed up. Matthews and Marner played with an energy that frankly I haven’t seen at all this series. Matthews finally got on the score sheet early in the third period, his patented release finally hitting the net and beating Sergei Bobrovsky to register his first-ever goal in the second round of the NHL playoffs. About time.

And so we go to another Game 7. Another 60 minutes with the season, and frankly, the entire legacy of this era of the Toronto Maple Leafs in the balance.

I hate this team.

This Leafs team is not normal

I wrote after the Leafs beat the Senators that this team is not normal. It isn’t. Adam Wylde from SDPN said after Game 5 that he has never seen another professional sports team “lose like losers” like this Leafs team does. He’s correct. This team isn’t normal because they constantly find new ways to break the hearts of the fans who have never stopped having The Passion.

I’ll be honest when I say that I was almost certain the Leafs would win this game. And I’ll also be honest when I say that I believe the Leafs will lose Game 7. I desperately hope I’m wrong.

There’s that word again, Hope. Hope returns every October. Hope fills the hearts of Leafs fans every April. “This is our year,” we say each time. And every single year of this godforsaken era, we are disappointed.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have one chance and one chance only to disprove this universal truth. They have one more opportunity to prove they are not who everyone thinks and knows they are. Losers. Chokers. Failures.

Leafs have one shot; nothing else matters

This game doesn’t matter. There’s no point in analysing the matchup of the third or fourth line, or whether the removal of Nick Robertson affected the final score line. It truly does not matter. Because the reality of whether or not the Leafs can win is not affected by the depth players that are or are not in the lineup. The only variable in victory for this team lies between the ears of its stars.

The Toronto Maple Leafs decide whether they win or lose. I’m sure they don’t make this decision consciously. I’m sure that Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner do not wake up on game day and look at themselves in the mirror and say “today I will lose a hockey game in embarrassing fashion”. In fact, I’m sure they say the opposite. But fundamentally, at this point in this nearly decade-long string of consistent failing, it is a mental game.

Sixty minutes. At home. The same place where you were literally booed for half of the last game you played.

It’s corny, it’s cliche, but I can’t help thinking of Eminem’s “Lose Yourself”:

“Look, if you had one shot, or one opportunity
To seize everything you ever wanted, one moment
Would you capture it? Or just let it slip?”

They’ve let it slip for eight straight years.

I’ve written before about how this team is different. Games 4 and 5 are arguments for how they aren’t. They have one shot, one opportunity to dispel that demon. Win, and the narrative is reversed. Win and maybe, just maybe, this isn’t the Leafs of old. Lose, in Game 7, at home, and it might well be the final nail in the coffin of the Core Four.