As Leafs Nation emerges from a darkened room with the shades pulled down and begins to recover after the heartbreak of the third period collapse in Boston in Game 7 on Monday, the quest for explanations and future plans have begun and will likely continue throughout a summer that promises to be eventful.
The improbability of the loss was illustrated quite vividly by Randy Robles of the Elias Sports Bureau on Sportsnet’s Prime Time Sports Tuesday afternoon, who indicated that the winning percentage of teams leading by three goals in the third period of a Game 7 was 98.4% and that not one of 865 teams in NHL history since the league’s inception in 1918 had relinquished a two goal lead with less than 90 seconds remaining.
Robles said that the only historical comparative to Toronto’s collapse was the Boston Red Sox loss to the New York Yankees in the 2003 ALCS, as they blew a three run lead in the bottom of the 8th inning and eventually lost in the 11th inning on Aaron Boone’s home run.
While some believe that the painful loss will in the end be constructive as a learning experience and motivation, it could have the reverse effect on the players.
“That hockey game will haunt me until the day I die…” said Leafs veteran Joffrey Lupul as he took to Twitter on Tuesday.
What is certain is that the organization has learned many things about their current roster after going through a grueling seven game series.
“We’ve got a long way to go, but we are going in the right direction.” said Toronto assistant GM Claude Loiselle on Tuesday.
The Leafs are in a fortuitous position compared to most of the league entering the off-season. While having a large number of restricted and unrestricted free agents, the Leafs have significant room under the league’s reduced salary cap to re-sign their own players.
They will have an advantage over teams that may be willing to trade salaried players for a reduced price to alleviate their cap situation(like Vancouver) and have the option of dipping into the free agent pool.
Unlike previous years when free agents may have shied away from the hockey-mad media spotlight of Toronto, the youth and promise of the current edition of the Leafs might act as a magnet for available players.
“Our challenge is to bring in more depth, to keep improving the hockey team all the time and not having players that need to do everything on their own.” Loiselle said
A number of factors would indicate that significant changes will be on the agenda with the Leafs over the next few months. The influence of energetic new MLSE president and CEO Tim Leiweke will undoubtedly put more emphasis on making improvements, but more than that will be the first real chance for GM Dave Nonis to re-shape the roster to more fit the defensive minded Randy Carlyle.
Nonis could not make many changes to the more speed oriented roster of the Ron Wilson era when he took over from Brian Burke last January, other than promoting prospects Nazem Kadri and Matt Frattin, trading Matthew Lombardi and David Steckel, acquiring Frazer McLaren and Ryan O’Byrne and demoting Mike Komisarek and Tim Connolly, but with the flexibility of ample cap room, the draft at the end of June, free agency in July and the use of two compliance buyouts to open up further cap room, the Leafs GM can put his stamp on the club and provide his veteran coach with the tools that he needs.
Leafs management and coaching staff will hold end of the season meetings later this week to set a strategy to address the greatest areas of need during the off-season and players will be cleaning out their lockers on Thursday.
The question is how many of those players will be visiting the Toronto locker room for the last time.
Second Round Prediction
Chicago vs Detroit
The Red Wings surprisingly beat the higher seeded Ducks in the first round, but that was more a product of Anaheim's underperformance. The Black Hawks are a juggarnaut and won't have much trouble beating Detroit.
Prediction: Hawks in 5
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