(Toronto) The message has been the same throughout the season: head down, one foot in front of the other, don’t look too far ahead. Also, learning from a painful past without staring too long at the rearview mirror either.
Posted yesterday at 3:57 p.m.
For the Toronto Maple Leafs, evolving under the intense and relentless spotlight of hockey’s biggest market, and with what could be a crushing weight on their shoulders, this was the only way forward for a team that wants to recover from recent failures.
Throughout a season marked by individual career highs and team bests, Maple Leafs players have tried to stay in control of their emotions, even during a rocky start to the campaign.
“We’re just trying to get on the ice and give ourselves the best opportunity [de réussite] on a daily basis. No matter the situation, we want to face it head-on,” said Maple Leafs captain John Tavares.
“There are always topics of conversation in the air,” added star scorer Auston Matthews. “There are only certain aspects that we can control. »
The Maple Leafs will try to continue on the same route, without taking their blinders off, facing their biggest tenure so far this season: the Tampa Bay Lightning, two-time defending Stanley Cup champions, in the first round of the playoffs.
“A gigantic challenge,” acknowledged head coach Sheldon Keefe, whose team will host Game 1 on Monday night.
“But when I look at our group, I think the harder it is, the better. This is what we need. »
The Maple Leafs completed the schedule with 115 points, 10 more than their former team record. Their 54 victories allowed them to erase their old mark of 49.
Matthews became the first Toronto team since 1993-94 to reach 50 goals. He added five to set a team record before going all the way to an impressive 60 in 73 games.
Meanwhile, Mitch Marner had 97 points, William Nylander had a career-high 34 goals, and goaltender Jack Campbell earned his first All-Star selection.
However, all these statistics, all these praises, including those relating to the team’s special teams, will not mean much if the Maple Leafs, once again, fail in their attempt to advance to the first round of playoffs. And this, even though their opponents amassed 110 points and finished eighth in the overall NHL standings.
That’s the reality of a team that hasn’t won a playoff round since 2004, or lifted the Stanley Cup since 1967, the last year the NHL had just six clubs.
“We know we’re in a special market, in front of a special group of supporters who are going to provide us with a lot of fuel and push us along our road. That’s what makes being here so special,” Tavares noted.
The Maple Leafs’ most recent playoff disaster dates back to last spring, when the team squandered a 3-1 lead in their first-round series against the badly neglected Montreal Canadiens before losing in seven games. .
Defenseman Morgan Rielly admitted that the players, over the summer and early in training camp, talked a lot about what happened to them, but didn’t mope around in the nightmare.
“It’s a question of balance […] You want to talk about it and you want to learn from it, but you also want to move on,” Rielly recalled.
“I doubt there’s a single player in our dressing room who will remember it positively unless we right the ship and achieve the ultimate goal. »