After the Game 1 Disaster, How Should You Bet the Maple Leafs in Game 2 vs. Tampa Bay?

What's Wrong with the Maple Leafs?

The ongoing issue with the Leafs – and why they aren’t a good playoff bet – is a unique confluence of not having won anything of substance in 55 years and everyone there makes too much damn money. I mean, name another pro sports franchise that compares to this.

There is an immense sense of entitlement and privilege here. It’s a deep rot. Leafs land is a country club more than a hockey club. The organization will say all the right things about winning, but this unique circumstance, which compounds every season they don’t win a Stanley Cup, makes it nearly impossible when games get real. You can’t even blame the players, surrounded by sycophants, who come to play here. 

That explains how a team with days to prepare for a vital Game 1 opened last night so far back on their heels we wondered how they could stand up straight. There’s a Mount Everest of a mental challenge when it comes to winning hockey games for real in Toronto. The looks on the players’ faces in Game 1 said everything. 

How Game 1 Went South for the Maple Leafs

The Leafs were down 3-0 by the end of the first period, had a brief respite when a William Nylander snipe made it 3-2, and then cratered, especially after a boneheaded major penalty to Michael Bunting for knocking out Lightning defenceman Erik Cernak with a clear elbow.

Starting goalie Ilya Samsonov let in goals (six over two periods) – including an unacceptable one where he didn’t cover the post on a wrap-around – that left you shaking your head. 

Nowhere else in the NHL does regular season accomplishment rhyme so worthlessly as it does in Toronto. The Boston Bruins are an organization that knows how to win in the playoffs. So do the Lightning. Even Leafs’ captain John Tavares in his post-game comments, talked about how the Lightning know how to play playoff hockey.

You’re going to put Samsonov, with his now 1-7 career playoff record, up against Tampa’s goaltending titan Andrei Vasilevskiy, a guy who has 64 playoff wins in four seasons, plus two Cups? It went so badly in Game 1 the Leafs are now mulling throwing rookie Joseph Woll in there. Leafs’ coach Sheldon Keefe certainly gave that impression when asked about it. 

How do think that’s going to turn out?

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What's the Outlook for the Maple Leafs in Game 2?

That everyone was focusing so much on Mitch Marner needing to play a final regular season game with zero impact on the standings instead of resting him for Game 1 against Tampa (knowing for weeks they would be playing the playoff nemesis Lightning), all so he could get to 100 points (he didn’t), says everything about this organization and the hockey market.

Leafs' players arriving at the rink before the game, walking down the ramp into the change room, were dressed like they should be on a fashion show catwalk somewhere, and that said everything. At least they looked good heading to the slaughter.

And incredibly, we woke up this morning and here are some futures for Thursday’s Game 2 – BetMGM Sportsbook has the Moneyline Leafs 1.69, Lightning 2.2; NorthStar Bets has the Leafs 1.62, Tampa 2.33; PointsBet Canada has Game 2 Leafs 1.63, Lightning 2.35; Proline has the Moneyline Leafs 1.67, Lightning 2.25.

The only hope is someone in that dressing room takes this situation (what actually has become a spring-time tradition) by the neck, says screw this, this isn’t acceptable, physically shakes off a decades-old malaise, like a Brad Marchand rag doll, and leads a core young, lost impressionable hockey players out of the Amazon rainforest of pro sport mental obstacle. Someone needs to shape these guys into a playoff team and fast. If they don’t win - convincingly - on Thursday, it’s adios muchachos – again.

We’re looking at you, Ryan O’Reilly. O’Reilly has the championship pedigree. Has he been here long enough, though, only arriving at February’s trade deadline, then breaking a finger and missing a chunk of games leading up to the start of the playoffs, where players who have been here the longest listen to him?