Leaf stars’ playoff disappearing act returns and lets Senators back in series

“I think everybody’s fine in here. The playoffs, it’s a roller coaster. It’s going to be ups and downs, and it’s about staying as even keeled as you possibly can.”

Auston Matthews spoke with conviction. The Toronto Maple Leafs’ captain believed his words. But it was hard not to picture the This is Fine Dog meme, in which the poor little cartoon pooch sips his coffee with his kitchen on fire in the background, telling himself everything is OK.

Such is the experience with the league’s most beaten-down franchise. When you’ve won a single playoff series in the past 21 years, and when you’re 1-13 in closeout games during the Matthews/Mitch Marner era, the baggage will follow after every loss. And the Leafs’ flaccid 4-0 Game 5 defeat to the Ottawa Senators is no exception.

It wasn’t long before the Senators vacuumed the already-tense air out of Scotiabank Arena Thursday night. The vibe never recovered following Thomas Chabot’s first-period goal, on which Marner’s stick check couldn’t reach him on time at the point and the shot fluttered through a big crowd in front of Leaf goalie Anthony Stolarz. The Leafs were chasing the game after that, fighting through inopportune penalties, bouncing pucks and all the old demons that have plagued them when they’re white-knuckling playoff games. Looking a lot like Ottawa did in the first couple games of the series, Toronto struggled to find high-quality looks against Linus Ullmark as the Senators clogged the shooting lanes in front of their net, and coach Craig Berube said after the game he felt the Leafs were forcing the play there too much and needed to adapt more and get the puck higher to open things up.

With the score 1-0 after 40 minutes and generating offense a Herculean task, it felt like a 2-0 lead would be insurmountable, and Ottawa broke Toronto’s back on a Leaf power play when a far-too-soft Matthews pass to the point created a Senators’ 2-on-1. One of William Nylander’s softest backchecking efforts of the season – late in a shift or not – let Dylan Cozens get free to bury the insurance marker and put the game out of reach.

The Leafs weren’t terrible in every facet of the game. They had allowed four shots on goal in the first 23:14 before Chabot’s opener. They generated their most high-danger chances of the series so far at 5-on-5. Stolarz was mostly steady and made a few big saves to keep Toronto alive, the best coming when the score was 1-0 and he stopped Brady Tkachuk in the slot to open the third period. When the Leafs claimed they liked a lot of things about their game Tuesday, it was understandable to a point. Game 1 aside, it’s been a close series, decided by a little moment here, a bounce or save there, with three games going to overtime, and Game 3 was competitive.

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” Marner said. “This is never supposed to be easy. So we knew it was gonna be a challenge.”

“At the end of the day, if you were to tell us before the series we’d be up 3-2, going back to their place, that’s a position that we’ll take,” Stolarz said.

But if we’re honest with ourselves: it’s happening again. The stars have gone quiet as the series shifts to deep waters. We’ve seemingly squeezed every last drop out of the narrative in the previous eight playoff runs, but it doesn’t make the problem any less real for Toronto today.

The defensive miscues from top Leaf forwards on Ottawa’s first couple goals, even the Cozens shorty, were forgivable given the line of Matthew Knies, Matthews and Marner had been dynamite defensively in the series, on the ice for no 5-on-5 goals against in Games 1 to 4. What wasn’t forgivable was Toronto’s zero on the scoreboard.

The top stars got their chances; Matthews missed the net on a 2-on-1 in the first and hit the post from the slot after receiving a nifty Marner feed in the third. Knies and John Tavares had more individual high-danger scoring chances than any player on either team at 5-on-5. But the problem goes beyond the granular and whether the Leafs did the right things on paper. The big guns have gone quiet again, period. After a sizzling start on the power play, they went 0 for 4 in Game 4 and 0 for 3 in Game 5, with some sloppy puck management mixed in Tuesday as well. Game 5 added the latest in a series of ugly late-series stats for the team’s top forwards in recent seasons.

Matthews, Marner, Tavares and Nylander in Games 5-7 of a playoff series since 2018-19, the first year of the Core Four:

Player	Games	Goals	Assists	Points
Matthews	15	6	5	11
Marner	16	0	5	5
Tavares	14	5	5	10
Nylander	16	6	7	13

Ugly games will happen. And as the Leafs indicated after Game 5, the Senators were never going to go quietly. But these are the moments in playoff series in which your go-to scorers are supposed to take the team on their backs. Tavares did it in Game 6 against the Tampa Bay Lightning two years ago. Nylander lifted up the Leafs in Game 6 against the Boston Bruins a year ago. It’s time for Matthews and Marner to have their moments. Otherwise, the Leafs could be staring down a blown 3-0 series lead and Game 7 by the weekend and setting themselves for an all-time franchise catastrophe.

“Throughout each period, each game, each series, there’s tons of momentum swings and shifts,” said defenseman Chris Tanev. “And usually whoever deals with those the best will win periods, win games and win series.”

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