The Excuses
If Tavares wasn’t hurt.
If Muzzin wasn’t hurt.
If Campbell made more saves.
If the shooting percentage would just regress to the mean.
If the referees would just call it by the book.
If they weren’t too old.
If they weren’t too young.
If the hockey gods would just listen…
What IF we just deleted all the statements that start with IF, and started to see this team for what they are?
The Toronto Maple Leafs are a team that needs to be perfect and is uncomfortable when that perfection is unattainable. Hockey, by definition, is an imperfect sport. That, is a conundrum.
Teams that win do so by navigating chaos and imperfection better than their opponent.
The Toronto Maple Leafs need to embrace the randomness and overcome it. This is their way out of the darkness caused by the excessive pressure of continued futility in an unforgiveable market.
Somebody just needs to burn the IFs with a torch and hope that the rest of them will follow the light.