BOSTON — William Nylander stood in the visitor’s locker room at TD Garden just before midnight, a grimace.
The Maple Leafs came back from down 3–1 in the series against the Boston Bruins with consecutive 2–1 wins – including an overtime victory – to defeat the club’s Original Six opponent in their first-round playoff series. Pushed to the limit before it happened. A devastating Game 7 overtime loss.
Nylander’s message was powerful.
“Look, I don’t think there’s a problem with the core,” the winger said of Toronto’s talented, highly-paid and to date underachieving nucleus just before Saturday turned into Sunday. “I think we were right there (expletive) the whole series and fought hard to get to Game 7 and OT.
“It’s a (expletive) feeling.”
It’s general manager Brad Treliving’s job to take emotion out of the equation.
Nylander, Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner and John Tavares round out the Leafs’ so-called “core four” talent.
There is no doubting the individual caliber the Leafs have acquired. Matthews led the NHL with 69 goals in the regular season, Nylander scored 98 points, and Marner was on pace to score 100 points for the first time before suffering an ankle sprain in March.
Tavares, meanwhile, had his worst offensive campaign since 2016-17 and will turn 34 in September, but he has provided value on the free-agent contract he signed six summers ago.
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However, the Leafs are in an all-too-familiar spot – just outside the first hurdle of the postseason for the seventh time in eight years. Despite missing two games, Matthews had four points in the 2024 series with the Bruins. Nylander scored twice in Game 6 and again in Game 7 due to migraine headaches, which kept him out of the first three contests.
However, Marner had only three points and Tavares added two in his seven appearances in a showdown in which Toronto scored only 12 times and went an unacceptable 1 of 21 on the power play.
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The Leafs stars made available to the media late Saturday night were asked about the future of the core — which currently accounts for about half of Toronto’s salary cap number — as it is currently constructed.
“We’ve been through a lot together,” Matthews said. “We have not yet recovered from that surge. But over the years, you grow and we become very close.”
Toronto finally experienced playoff success last spring when a string of postseason misery ended with its first series win in nearly two decades.
The good feelings were short-lived as they suffered a five-game exit in the second round. Questions resurfaced about the group’s ability to accomplish this.
That chatter is now once again in the forefront of my mind.
Head coach Sheldon Keefe, whose future will also be a topic of discussion despite a contract extension that has not yet begun, gave an honest assessment of how opponents in these playoffs, including the Bruins, will face tough defense against his team’s usually potent offense. How can we watch together? Pressed between the ice.
“It’s very clear,” he said. “(When) teams play the Leafs, they prepare games for the Leafs to beat themselves.”
And this may be the problem.
Former GM Kyle Dubas kept faith in the core before being shown the door about 12 months ago. Treliving, who has re-signed 26-year-old Matthews (four seasons) and 28-year-old Nylander (eight seasons) to big-money deals since taking the reins, will have to chart a path forward.
“I would just say the group came together,” Keefe said. “The way it came together here last week and throughout the season, this group was different this year. The core you are talking about is no different.
“The people around were different, the feelings towards the team were different, we played different. I thought we showed signs in this series of a team that can win.”
The overall evidence largely suggests otherwise. Change may come.
Marner – who sometimes becomes the focus of criticism – can sign an extension on July 1, while Tavares has a year remaining on his contract.
“It’s a very small difference,” Tavares said of the moments the Leafs have been unable to unlock. “There’s no doubt we’re right there.”
Keefe has no choice but to maintain faith in a Central group that, no matter what positive steps have been taken in terms of the outlook for playoff hockey, once again failed the postseason test.
“A lot of good things happened in this series,” Keefe said. “How the team played, how they planned and succeeded in giving us chances.
“Just come up a little while. But I have many reasons to believe that this team will win.”
Treliving must decide whether he agrees or not.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 5, 2024.
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