The leafs had the lead going into the third period of a game 7 series. It's not like we got our asses handed to us. We got that far without 2 of our best 3 players even showing up.
Laine and Sheifele showed up for the playoffs. Matthews and Nylander didn't. That was the difference. It remains to be seen if Matthews and Nylander will be continued playoff busts. Let's hope they aren't.\
If Laine and Sheifele keep showing up like this every post season... and Matthews and Nylander continue being disgraceful human beings in the post season... well... get used to seeing this every year.
LOL. You really need to take a deep breath and calm thyself.
The bolded is my exact point. It isnt that they are significantly better than the Lwafs, but their experience calmed them down and was why they were able to get ahead (along with somw unfortunate Leaf plays). The Leafs were with Boston until the 3rd period of game 7. With more experience, I am sure they would have done a much better job shutting them down.
Not trying to be condescending. Was just trying to point out that in any team sport it is very difficult to come back when you let in a deflating goal or 2. Its not like the entire team was the reason we lost in the third (yes, you win/lose as a team but those mistakes were not on the whole team even if it took the wind out of everybody's sails).
Im not excusing our 3rd period, that is something thst needs to be worked on. However, based on your posts in this thread it seems you are putting way too much weight on a third period lead loss in a high scoring game where we were only up by 1 goal.
Experience will help keep our team ahead in that situation. However, we should all be able to agree that if we redid that 3rd period most likely Gardiner and Andersen would not have made the mistakes thst led to the goals against. They were bad decisions/plays, but they are both good players. That is why some people are not as upset abot the 3rd period as you, it sucked but it was not a full team 3 goal collapse like 2013. It was a couple bad plays in a 1 goal/tie game that make it neafly impossible to get going again with 15mins left in the game.
1)
Agree to disagree, Boston is as of right now "significantly better" than we are. You talk about how much better we'd have been if only we had more experience and that's exactly the point - we don't have that experience, they do and that's a big part of why they are better. Not light years better but they were almost 3-2 favourites before the series began and they proved that that was fair and if anything, they should have been bigger favourites than they were.
2)
It wasn't a high scoring game until we collapsed in the 3rd period.
3)
Not sure how much "weight" you think I'm putting on it. I'm not saying it defines us as a team or anything, I just disagree with the people saying things like "it's only one period" or "anyone can win a game 7" or even you with your theoretical question of what if this had happened to Boston instead of us - it didn't happen to them and I can't even imagine it happening to them, that's the whole point. I said this earlier:
If someone told you that either Boston or Toronto collapsed like that admit it - you'd know instantly that it was Toronto wouldn't you?
It was meant as a rhetorical question but I'm going to ask that question of you directly this time and if you answer honestly, I'd be surprised if your answer was anything but yes, you could guess with a great degree of certainty that if one of these two teams collapsed, it was the Leafs.
4)
You say that is was "nearly impossible to get going again" with 15 minutes left. Again, IMHO that just again shows that we lack the experience needed to beat a team like Boston. If you can't "get going" then well, that's a pretty big problem. Game 7, 3rd period, if you can't "get going" then you don't really even stand a chance do you?
Not the end of the world. The collapse last time we played Boston was awful but I got over it in time and TBH, I'm alreay over this collapse too. I'm not going to pretend it didn't happen or that it was "just another period" though, it was what it was and hopefully the scars won't last but the experience will serve as strong motivation for next season. Boston is absolutely better than we are today, whether that's still the case next season, we'll see. At any rate both teams will have some roster turnover next season so it will be a new day so to speak to some extent for both teams.
Edit - would add that comparing us to WPG is rather pointless. We're in the East, they're in the West, they're a few years ahead of us in the process so they have some very good vets who play huge roles etc. They're much better than we are right now too but that's OK, doesn't mean they will be next season. We should be trying to be the best team we can be, not just better than WPG but better than everyone else too but it will take time.