We Did It, Folks! We Can Piss On The Maple Leafs' Grave!

Toronto returned from the Olympic break, reportedly, and fell flat on their big, dumb face.

I honestly didn't think it was possible in October. When it was around Thanksgiving, and the Toronto Maple Leafs not only weren't in the playoff picture, but below .500, I still figured they'd find a way to weasel a way in later. All the signs were pointing toward this being an absolute jenkem farm of a team, I still didn't quite buy in to their capsizing, because they weren't any good last season, either. Yet, they still goofed over 100 points because a couple goalies no one had heard of before freaked the fuck off. Luckily for all of us, the Leafs considered this a stable model, their "vision" had come to fruition, and they've successfully driven the whole organization into a ravine.

The Leafs returned to NHL action well outside the playoffs, but not out of range that some miracle charge couldn't make things interesting, at least. They have proceeded to eat every ounce of shit they could find, getting whacked by Tampa, Florida, and Ottawa, to the combined tune of 14-5. It capped off with Craig Berube throwing his players under the bus, for the fifth or sixth time this season, because he has no other card to play, other than going bobbing for free weights.

Berube may be right in that he can't generate heart or guts among his players, but what he ignores, or has to ignore, is that he can absolutely kill the heart and guts his players had before they worked for him for more than a week. His neanderthal hockey that hasn't really applied since 2004 hasn't exactly generated an atmosphere that is going to want to make players dig any deeper than what's required to keep receiving their direct deposit.

When you're playing shitty hockey, for some sloth who wasn't ever nearly as talented as you are and is trying to make you play like he did, and you know he's going to question your commitment when his ways fuck your team over royally, and you turn around and see this:

You know the jig is up, right? This organization somehow found a way to top a coach who couldn't make toast.

Berube isn't alone in sinking what should have been one of the more entertaining teams in the league for years on end. This was a team that signed or took on multi-year deals for the likes of Max Domi, Jake McCabe, Dakota Joshua, and Brandon Carlo, players that might share an amount of brain cells that can be counted on one hand but certainly not an amount any of them can count to, but couldn't wait to shove Mitch Marner out of town. He'll be winning the Pacific with the Knights, by the way.

Ever since the Leafs splashed on the scene in 2017 with three leading scorers 20 or younger, and made life hell for a powerhouse Capitals team in the first round, the organization, the press, and the fans couldn't wait to fixate on what the Leafs weren't. Before they were even allowed to try, it was concluded for Matthews, Marner, and Nylander that they couldn't win doing the things they do best. "It'll never work!" decried a media and fandom that somehow wasn't paying attention to the Penguins or Caps winning Cups by getting faster and more dynamic.

They then let two Game 7 losses to the Bruins turn their brains into pudding, even though they lost two game 7s to a team that was better than they were, hence those Game 7s being in Boston and not Toronto. Losing Game 7s to teams that had 112 points and 108 points, as thost Bruins team did, would just be shrugged shoulders to most every other team. To the Leafs, it meant reconstruction through flamethrower.

So sure, they can sign John Tavares to soup up the forwards even more, but pairing that with defensemen that would have to insert an ICBM up their ass to even get to "plodding." They can show the door to GMs and coaches they never really let out from under Brendan Shanahan's thumb, to bring in a GM and coach that the press approved of, because they all got drunk together once at a hotel bar in Hartford or some such horseshit. That GM is taking the Penguins back to the playoffs, it should be noted.

This is an organization that took perhaps the most talented forward group developed within an organization, anywhere, in years, and turned it into two playoff series wins over nine years. That's it. Two. It was terrified the magic trio wouldn't live up to the ghost of Wendel Clark, and then spent nearly a decade trying to get them all to play like Wendel Clark. Shocking it didn't work.

Their window is toast now. Only Matthew Knies is a regular under 29, and he's already an ouchy power forward. That always ends well. They'll trade Easton Cowan in a panic this summer for, oh I don't fucking know, Drew Doughty? They've only been humping that fantasy for 15 years, so it makes a ton of sense they'd finally pull it off when Doughty moves like Vladimir Guerrero Sr. at the end of his career.

It's an entire organization and fanbase that couldn't wait to scream about what it wasn't, and then flagelated themselves when they turned into exactly that. They've gotten exactly what they deserve. Now they can return to where they, and we, were at our happiest, right in the fucking dirt.