Jack Todd: Maple Leafs' newest show of futility is wildly entertaining

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Residing six hours up the 401 from Toronto is like watching the NHL’s longest-running cleaning soap opera from a budget seats: Because the Leaf Falls, now getting into its 57th season.

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Hardly ever has it been extra entertaining than the previous week, when within the wake of the Maple Leafs’ loss to the Florida Panthers, GM Kyle Dubas held a Monday press convention by which he expressed doubts that he needed to proceed within the job.

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Brendan Shanahan, who believed within the younger GM so passionately that he had a brand new contract prepared for him to signal, started to have doubts on the idea of a press convention.

Then Dubas determined he needed to maintain the job in any case — however he needed a pay hike.

Then Shanahan fired him.

What’s outstanding is just not that the 2 males accountable for the on-ice product apparently can’t make up their minds concerning the day of the week — what’s noteworthy is that regardless of the failures, few followers needed Dubas gone.

A Twitter publish from the fan web site Editor in Leaf went additional, deciding that the sport itself was the issue, that the result is simply too random and too depending on goaltending.

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“I simply can’t consider,” mentioned the nameless writer, “that so many individuals in hockey refuse to acknowledge how random the sport is. Successful is probably the worst measure of success.”

Gee, and all these years I’ve thought that successful was the measure of success. Foolish me.

The skilled journalists have been little higher. In a phase for TSN between the Dubas press convention and his firing, one reporter talked about Dubas as if he have been a cross between Sam Pollock and Gandhi. One other determined to sound opinions from different GMs within the league — on selections made by the Leafs.

Protection is certain to be skewed in favour of the Leafs when the sports activities networks are owned by the firms that personal the hockey crew — however the impact is pervasive. In that environment, it’s tough for print journalists to be unduly important, for concern of showing churlish by comparability.

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As a substitute, journalists deal with the “course of” and find yourself sounding as if they’re PR individuals on the workplaces of Maple Leaf Sports activities and Leisure.

The phenomenon, nevertheless, goes nicely past the media. Toronto appears to feed off the Maple Leaf tradition, and the Leafs feed off Toronto, a metropolis the place the followers are as docile because the media. Simply as soon as this post-season, followers received up on their hind legs and did the unthinkable: After a depressing first interval in Recreation 1 towards Tampa, what is generally the deadest crowd in sports activities turned on their darlings. They booed the Leafs, loud and lengthy.

The impact was palpable. Toronto misplaced that recreation however with a bit of assist from an erratic Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Leafs gained their first playoff collection in 20 years earlier than reverting to type towards a disciplined Florida crew.

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The issue has appeared apparent since Dubas signed John Tavares, even when Toronto doesn’t see it. Maybe what’s wanted is a bit of distance, just like the 910 kilometres between Toronto and Boston. Grasp hockey author Kevin Paul Dupont of the Boston Globe minimize to the guts of it with cruel accuracy in a single tweet. “The Dubas period ends in Toronto,” Dupont wrote. “Reached spherical 2 as soon as, with a roster vastly overpriced at ahead, undermanned at D, and perpetually in want of varsity goaltending.

“But the followers streamed in for all of it. Like a magic trick, sans the hat/rabbit.”

The identical drained magic trick that has fooled Toronto because the Harold Ballard years is now dressed up with a high-tech company gloss below MLSE, however nothing elementary has modified. Cities with long-standing hockey traditions have their very own tradition that displays the crew and is mirrored in flip. In Boston, trot out the identical bunch of losers 12 months after 12 months and they’d knock your entrance tooth out. In Montreal, followers and media alike veer madly from manic heights of euphoria to the slough of despond, relying whether or not the crew gained or misplaced the evening earlier than.

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In Toronto, it’s reward the method and wait until subsequent 12 months, when the best crew within the historical past of the sport will certainly win that elusive Stanley Cup. Nor are issues possible to enhance with Brendan Shanahan and his endless Shanaplan.

My recommendation, which Toronto will ignore: Get mad. Boo. Holler. Hell, stage a riot. That’s what Montreal would do.

OK, I’m joking concerning the riot. However paying $500 a pop to sit down and scroll by means of your telephone whereas the Leafs fatten their stats with one other regular-season win? That’s not going to get it achieved. On the very least, 56 years of failure ought to have taught you that a lot.

Heroes: Matt Tkachuk, Sergei Bobrovsky, Alex Barkov, Joe Pavelski, Brittney Griner, Cloé Lacasse, Ingrid Wilm, Nikola Jokic, Jamal Murray, Jimmy Butler, &&&& final however not least, the nice Jim Brown, warts and all.

Zeros: MLSE, Brendan Shanahan, Kyle Dubas, Sheldon Keefe, Auston Matthews, John Tavares, William Nylander, Mitch Marner, Ja Morant, LIV golfers, Claude Brochu, David Samson &&&& final however not least, Jeffrey Loria.

Now and perpetually.

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