The Toronto Maple Leafs have the best record in the Atlantic Division. However, if you think this year’s team is different from last year’s team that lost to the Boston Bruins in Game 7 of the playoffs, you might need to get your hearing checked.
The Leafs have been booed by fans after their recent home losses to the Vancouver Canucks and Dallas Stars.
The Leafs, who are on a three-game losing streak going into Thursday night’s game against the New Jersey Devils, have been struggling recently, and the fans are not happy about it.
Leafs coach Craig Berube commented after the 4-1 loss to the Stars on Tuesday, “It’s everywhere. They do it in every rink, don’t they? I mean, it’s part of the game. They pay good money, and they come to see hockey, and they want to see us win. So, that’s, you know, that’s the way it goes.”
In other words, it’s not a big deal.
This might not be a big deal if the fans were booing in St. Louis, where Berube last coached. But this is Toronto. The big difference between St. Louis and Toronto is that the Blues ended their championship drought and won a Stanley Cup in 2019, while the Leafs have gone over 20 years without even making it to the conference final.
Because of this, Toronto fans don’t have much patience for poor performance, even in mid-January, when the Leafs are still one of the best teams in the NHL. The bigger issue is not the losing streak or the fans’ reactions to it.
The bigger problem is how the Leafs’ leaders, especially Mitch Marner and William Nylander, are reacting.
After the 3-0 loss to Vancouver on Saturday, which Toronto defenseman Chris Tanev called “not good enough,” Marner said, “I thought we played well.” A few nights later, Marner suggested the best way to handle being booed was to “just try to ignore it.”
Nylander agreed and didn’t take the fans’ reactions seriously.
“It doesn’t really matter if they boo,” Nylander said. “I mean, we know we’re a good team, so, yeah… I think all good teams need to go through some stretch where everything’s not clicking and everything like that. So, yeah, I mean, good teams find their way out of this. And, I mean, it’s only been three games, so what’s the big deal, really?”
No big deal?
As Toronto radio host Sam McKee said on Sportsnet’s Real Kyper & Bourne, “It’s not three games, Willy — it’s eight years.”
Actually, it’s even longer than that.
The boos are because the team has only won one playoff round in 20 years. The boos are because the Leafs haven’t won a Stanley Cup since 1967. The boos are for an organization that keeps trying the same approach with the same “Core Four” players, even though the results have been the same year after year.
Whether they like it or not, the past is still hanging over this team. If the players don’t like it, they shouldn’t play in Toronto.
And maybe something needs to change. Marner and Tavares both have contracts that end at the end of this season. Tavares has already had his captaincy taken away from him. If the Leafs have another early playoff exit, the team may not want to bring the 34-year-old back, even if he’s willing to take a hometown discount.
Marner is also in a similar situation. He’s having the best season of his career with 60 points in 45 games. But with a career marked by playoff failures, the decision to extend him in Toronto will depend on what happens in the playoffs.
This is what the Leafs still haven’t figured out. What they do in January doesn’t really matter. What matters now is that the team develops the right habits and mentality to succeed in the playoffs.
At the moment, it doesn’t seem like anything has changed.
Until the team understands why the fans are booing, there’s no reason to believe anything will change when the playoffs come around.
