Toronto Maple Leafs: Hello darkness, my old friend after another Game 7 loss

The Toronto Maple Leafs lost yet another Game 7 to the Boston Bruins and now enter another offseason with questions needing to be answered

Well … here we are again. The Toronto Maple Leafs have been eliminated in heartbreaking fashion by the Boston Bruins for a second consecutive year and the third time in the past seven seasons. Despite the prior losses, this one certainly feels a lot worse than the others.

In both 2013 and 2018, the Leafs were the team that had to claw back from a multi-game deficit to force a Game 7. Both years, Toronto found itself down 3-1 to the big, bad Bruins, and in both years, it took third-period heroics from the home team to win.

This year, the Leafs held a 3-2 series lead and had a chance to seal the deal and finally slay the beast. But as was the case in previous years, the Leafs couldn’t see themselves through to the second round.

On Tuesday night, the Buds were kicked from the postseason following a demoralizing 5-1 loss to the Bruins.

Toronto looked to be getting off to a good start through the first 10 minutes of play, but Boston continued to forecheck hard and managed to catch the Leafs defence on several occasions in the first period.

With just under six minutes to play in the first period, Travis Dermott attempted to hit Andreas Johnsson with a stretch pass from below the circles. Instead, the puck was kept in at the blue line, and just seconds later, Joakim Nordstrom found a hole in Frederik Andersen and opened the scoring for the home side.

Dermott’s partner, Jake Gardiner, would have more issues with the puck just minutes later, as he left the puck, for nobody, behind the net. Marcus Johansson would pick the puck up, walk out into the slot, and go far side on Andersen to make it a two-goal advantage.

The Leafs would come out in the second with more energy and effort, and they’d even cut the lead to one, as John Tavares fired a shot past Tuukka Rask to make it 2-1.

More from Tip of the Tower

• Cam Phillips making his mark on Toronto Argonauts offence
• Toronto Argonauts: 4 storylines ahead of matchup against Redblacks
• Federico Bernardeschi ready for new challenge with Toronto FC
• Toronto Argonauts overcome Roughriders in entertaining Touchdown Atlantic
• Buffalo Bills: Von Miller drawing inspiration from Bruce Smith

However, that’s a close as the Leafs would get. Sean Kuraly would walk through the Toronto defence and score from distance to make it 3-1 before a pair of empty netters from Charlie Coyle and Patrice Bergeron sealed the deal.

With the win, Boston will now welcome the Columbus Blue Jackets to town for Game 1 of their second-round series.

The Leafs are the third and final Canadian team to be eliminated in the first round. Both the Calgary Flames and Winnipeg Jets were also bounced by the Colorado Avalanche and St. Louis Blues, respectively.

It’ll be a difficult offseason for the Maple Leafs. Kyle Dubas has several key restricted free agents without contracts, the biggest of which is Mitch Marner. Additionally, the team will likely lose both of Ron Hainsey and Jake Gardiner due to cap constraints. There could also be some trades on the way, but like every Leafs trade over the last few years, we won’t know about them until the deal has been finalized.

It’s hard to look past all the negative, but there are a ton of positives to look forward to with the Maple Leafs. The series loss is going to sting for the entire summer.