Toronto Maple Leafs Robbed by Last Ridiculous Call

The Toronto Maple Leafs are in an unenviable situation.

Basically, every time they don’t blow the doors off a team, they’ve got to listen to the critics who are still aghast at how the Toronto Maple Leafs continue to go their own way in a league that normally has the inventiveness and ingenuity of an Old Navy commercial.

And when they don’t get it done, as like last night, the knives come out.

Is the NHL a salary cap league that has nearly 100% parity, and is the NHL not a league where the worst team will still beat the best team 35-40% of the time?

Shhhh don’t think about it.  Just be mad.  The world is scary, but you can hate the Leafs. 

Should the Leafs not be 4-0, based on how they’ve played?  Yes of course, but don’t say that out loud or a zombie might notice you have a brain and try to eat it.

The Toronto Maple Leafs Sure Are Fun

Look, I didn’t think the Leafs ownership had the guts to stick with Shanahan and Dubas for another year.  I am absolutely 100% behind the decision, but I really did think that they’d revert back to being the team that failed for 50+ years, due mostly to letting the fans and media run their team by proxy.

I didn’t think they’d stick with them, but they did.  I continue to praise them.  But I doubt they’ll have the guts to stay sticky through a prolonged slump or some other kind of whacky development.  My impression (and I may be subject to confirmation bias) is that more than a few people are very expletive deleted about the Leafs right now, and that that might force management into a terrible but in no way surprising move.

The media is loving it. So much angst to mine, and its so delicious!

With that attitude, you can make naps, kittens and D’angelo look bad. Absolutely ridiculous.

If you find yourself upset about a loss where the Leafs destroyed their opposition for two periods, went 0-5 on the power-play and where their best player didn’t score a goal, then I’d suggest getting an emotional support dog, because this stuff happens to every competitive team that doesn’t immediately satisfy expectations.

There is this great team, and potentially (should things work out with the timing and a few prospects) an all-time kind of team.  But they’ve taken so long to develop, and have lost in ways that test and try the patience of even their most saintly fan (it’s a guy from Hawkestone called Steve St. Hagiograph, by the way).

So you better believe it when I tell you that I know you don’t want to hear this, but:

The Leafs got robbed last night and deserved to win.

You didn’t need that, and I’m sorry.

The Fun Never Stops

It’s only human nature to, by this point, just hate the Toronto Maple Leafs even more than you could possibly ever even love them.  I don’t think I have to explain that here. You either understand that sentence or you don’t.

This is the team that somehow botched things so badly that their 105 year old franchise record was met with the kind of boredom and disdain usually associated with Hollywood actors who release albums.

But, like the bucket hat we thought we left behind at Woodstock 99 , I rise from the crumbs of refuse* and, idiot that I am, continue to believe in this team.

If you just stick with it long after everyone thinks you’re crazy, sometimes Joe Damaggio shows up to pay your mortgage.  Kevin Costner taught me that.  Sometimes Mitch Marner scores the winning goal.  Actually…. I don’t know.  He’d probably just shoot the puck over the glass if it was an important game.

The point I’m trying to make here, is that the Leafs must remember what every gambler knows to be true: The only way to be successful in the long run is to control your emotions when the “correct” play doesn’t work and doesn’t work and doesn’t work and then doesn’t work again.

The Leafs doubled their opponents time with the puck last night and had way more shots and chances.  They were robbed on a ridiculous call at the end of the game.  (Which, spare me the technicalities, I don’t care. The rule of video replay was never intended to prevent this kind of play, and it’s silly to disallow a goal no one was even complaining about.)

Sure yeah yeah Zamboni driver, blah blah salary cap, blah blah playoffs etc.  I get it.  All I’m saying is that this team has a lot going for it, and also that you probably are going to need a sense of humour if you’re going to cheer for them.

The Toronto Maple Leafs are frustrating, but they are also an incredible team on the cusp of something special.  Or maybe they’re the Vancouver Canucks or San Jose Sharks of the 2010s.  I don’t know.  If you knew for sure, it wouldn’t be fun.

But let’s all try to keep our heads. The Leafs should be 4-0 and they will eventually win over 70% of the points available to them.  Kyle Dubas isn’t the devil.  Please go outside.

*I was going to use “ashes of disaster” but it sounded too gauche.