The Toronto Maple Leafs have played two-straight excellent games, and they have clinched their seventh straight playoff appearance.
This is an accomplishment that has basically been ignored due to the Toronto Maple Leafs unlucky streak of first round losses.
It is, however, a monumental accomplishment that illustrates the silliness of the way we view professional sports. Our culture has a win-or-else attitude that completely sucks, and which is not only destructive, but immature.
The Leafs play for a championship in a variance filled tournament in a poorly designed game in which two players (the goalies) (not even the most talented players) and the referees more to do with the outcome of the games than the other 36 players involved in each series.
Worse, is that everyone collectively pretends this doesn’t matter.
In addition to making the playoffs for seven straight years, the Toronto Maple Leafs also have a four year run of flirting with a .700 points percentage, something which is also highly impressive.
Putting The Toronto Maple Leafs Losses in Context
It’s worth remembering that the “six straight losses” thing is overblown and retroactively applied to quality performances in order to make it sound worse than it is. This is a shameful practice also known as “Fox Newsing.”
The Leafs were a team full of rookies that took a Legacy Team to six games and almost pulled off an incredible upset. Then while all their best players were still on their ELCs, they took another Legacy Team to Game 7 two seasons in a row.
In both those seasons future overrated emotional manchild Nazem Kadri was suspended for BOTH deciding games, forcing a trade off this team.
So while the Leafs have in fact lost six straight opening round series, the first three should actually be seen as great accomplishments. Those weren’t “losses” as much as they were stepping stones to glory. We are constantly told that losing builds character and that you can’t win unless you have experience. The paradox is we don’t like watching people get that experience.
Also, when it doesn’t apply to the Leafs, people love to talk about the “Five Year Rebuild” as the NHL Standard. Well the Leafs made the playoffs in every single year of their supposed five year rebuild (if you don’t count their season of tanking to get Matthews as the first year, which you shouldn’t).
In year four, it was the Covid Season, and there was a six month layoff before the random tournament of variance was played in August. The Leafs lost a five-game series where their opponent set an NHL record for save percentage in a playoff series.
Under these conditions, how can anyone view this series in a bad light? It was a total fluke.
It was also the biggest example of “Getting Goalied” in NHL history, and the Leafs were the better team in every game and should have easily beat Columbus.
Against Montreal, not only could Auston Matthews not shoot the puck, but John Tavares didn’t play. In addition, the Leafs lost a deciding game where they came from behind by two goals in the third period and outshot Montreal 12-0 in overtime before a knucklepuck beat Jack “Crybaby” Campbell let in from 80 feet out, while an elbowed-in-the-head Alex Galchenyuk laid on the ice 200 feet away without a penalty call.
And finally last year, the Leafs beat the back-to-back champs in game six only to have the referees decide to call back a goal that counts every other time. The NHL literally forced the Leafs to win five games to advance.
To quote the incomparable Patterson Hood – And You think I make this up? I could never make this up…And every word is true.