Leafs still in Battle of Ontario driver’s seat, but past playoff failures loom large

Ottawa Senators forward Dylan Cozens (24) scores short-handed against Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz (41) during third-period NHL playoff action in Toronto on Tuesday, April 29, 2025. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Nathan Denette

TORONTO — Auston Matthews stood in a sombre, all-too-familiar-feeling locker room.

The Maple Leafs captain said all the right things to a wall of cameras flanked by reporters moments after his team wasted yet another opportunity to end an opponent’s season.

Matthews sported a calm, we’ve-got-this demeanour. A tortured fan base, however, has seen similar playoff scripts. The deep scars remain. The painful memories are hard to cast aside.

Toronto has seen its 3-0 lead over the upstart Ottawa Senators whittled to 3-2 following back-to-back losses in the teams’ first-round matchup.

The Leafs remain in the driver’s seat — Game 6 of the best-of-seven series goes Thursday in the nation’s capital — but the screw has been tightened and ugly narratives have begun to resurface in the Battle of Ontario.

“We’re not looking in the rear-view mirror,” Matthews said. “We’re in a good spot here.”

But the history is impossible to ignore.

Toronto is now an abysmal 1-13 in potential series-clinching games since Matthews and Mitch Marner led the Original Six franchise out of a down-to-the-studs rebuild in 2017.

There have been crushing Game 7 losses and a string of missed chances with adversaries wobbling on the ropes.

Those playoff “demons” — first uttered by former assistant coach Paul MacLean four years ago before Toronto blew a 3-1 series lead to the Montreal Canadiens and lost in seven — have been tough to shake.

The Leafs’ disappointing 4-0 home loss Tuesday to the Senators following Saturday’s 4-3 overtime setback that breathed life into their provincial rival featured many hallmarks of past post-season missteps.

Toronto lost the special teams’ battle. The opposition goaltender played well. The Leafs looked tense and nervous at times. Pucks chimed off posts and chances were squandered. The talent-loaded core of Matthews, Marner, William Nylander and John Tavares couldn’t break through when it mattered most.

“It’s not supposed to be easy,” Marner said. “This was never supposed to be easy.”

The club shook things up last off-season when it hired Stanley Cup-hoisting head coach Craig Berube, added more blue-line bite and shored up the goaltending. Toronto instituted a more direct, north-south, battle-heavy approach — a system tailored to playoff hockey in hopes the competitive switch wouldn’t have to be flipped this spring.

Despite the two recent setbacks in a series that has seen a pair of Leafs’ OT victories and a Game 1 blowout, Berube’s message is simple.

“It’s playoff hockey,” he said. “There’s a lot of ups and downs. We’ve got to stay composed and stay poised. We’ll figure out some things and be better next game.

“We’re confident.”

Marner, who makes it clear every time a question about the past is posed his only concern is the present, said belief remains high.

“We knew it was going to be a challenge,” he said. “They pushed back the last two games. We’ve got to go into a building and play our best game. We’ve been a great road team all year.”

Toronto, which registered a franchise-record 25 wins away from home in 2024-25, went 5-for-9 on the power play over the first three games of the series. Ottawa has responded with a man-advantage goal and a pair of short-handed efforts over the last two contests.

The Leafs also haven’t generated enough at 5-on-5 with just six even-strength goals, including two in OT.

“Every game is a ton of pressure,” said Toronto defenceman Chris Tanev, one of team’s key off-season additions. “Throughout each period, each game, each series, there’s tons of momentum swings and shifts. Usually whoever deals with those the best will win periods, win games and win series.”

The group made available to the media put on brave faces Tuesday after the nothing-to-lose Senators — looking to become just the fifth NHL team to win a series after trailing 3-0 — hacked another chunk off their advantage.

“It’s about the next day, the next game,” Matthews said. “We’re going to be ready to go.”

Doubt, these Leafs insist, hasn’t crept in. One more loss, however, and those playoff demons could come tapping on their collective shoulder.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 30, 2025.

Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian Press