Are the Toronto Maple Leafs real? with five early exits and unable to make it past first round of playoffs

Toronto Maple Leafs (3 June, 2021)

The Toronto Maple Leafs team has either hit a dead end or seem to collapse year after year in the first round of playoff. When it comes to playoff they seem to choke in the first round, a team top in its division and a team with top four highest paid players consisting of John Tavares, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander who have nothing to show for in the playoffs, while relying on the players who were signed with league bare minimum salary – creating a gap between the players with have(Habs) and have not’s.

As an aftermath of Toronto Maple Leafs, losing three games in a row to the Montreal Canadiens after holding 3 -1 series lead, do have plenty of questions to resolve in the summer, evaluate what is lacking and how the Toronto Maple Leafs will handle things moving forward will have to be seen and see how Kyle Dubas pulls rabbits out of the hat.

When asked Wednesday about his top-four players, Toronto Maple Leafs president Brendan Shanahan said “We want to keep them here. We are going to do this here in Toronto with this group. There will be changes that’ll be made, there will be tweaks along the way, of course.” he told reporters.

When referring to Toronto Maple Leaf’s inability to close out the series against the Montreal Canadiens, Shanahan said, “There’s a killer instinct that is missing that we need to address.” or do they lack that sandpaper grinding, which is very much needed and essential to climb over the mountain of first round playoff for the current Maple Leafs team.


Although, Shanahan believes in the core players, but with salary cap stagnated for a while, due to the current situation. Maple leafs have plenty of work to be done; to figure out this summer and Kyle Dubas has his work cut out to fill up with new pieces to the core group and inject in them that “killer instinct” which Shanahan mentioned  after their loss to Montreal Canadiens, “There’s a killer instinct that is missing that we need to address.” and confidently said “But we are going to get this done”.

While Dubas said. “I have no doubt that, as we progress through this journey with our group, that the way that they’re viewed as playoff performers will be much different in the future.”

In regular season both Marner and Matthews led the way, with both finishing in the top five in NHL. Auston Matthews had 41 goals to win the Rocket Richard Trophy and is one of three finalists for the Ted Lindsay Award. Maple Leafs regular season was great, with a division title, the Leaf’s first since 2002.

In regards to loss to Montreal, Auston Matthews leader in goals scored in regular seanon said. “You’ve got to have a lot of things go your way. For us, we have no excuses. You have to create your own luck. But we failed to execute in a number of departments.”

Let me scrutinize the current roster which I hope will look quite different come preseason training 2021-2022 we will deal with the goalies, defense, and then forwards.

Goalies:  With Jack Campbell taking over the reigns from Frederik Andersen due of his injuries,  is a solid solution in net although, he might just need an extra boost of confidence and good health on his side. Jack Campbell, who went on eleven games with no loss in his belt, he should be fine to hold the Maples Leafs fort. Although we will miss Frederik Andersen in net, with Seattle expansion and expiring terms, goalie Andersen, I believe is most certainly gone this summer.

As Jack Campbell now taking over as a starting goalie, David Rittich, Michael Hutchinson, Veini Vehvilainen, Joseph Woll, all in the pipeline will have to fight and prove themselves for the backup job as to who turely wants and the need  the backups.

Defense: Presently the defense seems okay, but in order to make it past the first round the Toronto Maple Leafs require a top defense men who can kill penalties, as well a strong anchormen to boost their power plays, which was truly abysmal throughout the season and in the playoffs, so much so that they had goals scored on them with man advantage.