UEFA European Championship viewers will have noticed the use of a new officiating technology. A sensor in the ball detects the moment when it's struck, producing a spike in a little on-screen graph that looks like a heart monitor readout.

A first thought at seeing this in action: Huh, cool.

A second thought that soon follows: Uh-oh.

It's easy to imagine the potential uses of such technology in other sports. In basketball, the little heart monitor graphic would show if a ball was deflected on the way out of bounds. In baseball, a sensor in the glove could replace the pop of the leather in determining when a catch is made. In football, completing a catch or maintaining control through the ground could be assessed by whether the ball was properly secured. Too much of a jiggle? The spikes on the graph look like a heart attack. No catch.

These things might lead to more accurate calls. They would definitely lead to more delays, longer games, and a more frustrating viewing experience.

This is the deal we've struck with ourselves in the age of video review: In a quest to achieve perfect objectivity and reduce the potential for human error, we've created an era of second-guessing, where the exhilaration of on-field moments cannot be trusted, and where incidental infractions can become game-defining moments. Objectivity is never achieved because the potential for error has just shifted to other humans.

It's enough to make one long for the days when the only officials to complain about were the ones on the field, wearing whistles.

It wasn't supposed to be this way. The original concept behind video review was simple enough. Televised replays were already showing clear officiating mistakes, like a completed catch when the ball hit the ground first. Granting some oversight to a replay official would correct those obvious errors.

But in practice, introducing that extra layer of second thought has brought not only the speedy correction of glaring mistakes but also a wholesale reexamination of incidents ranging from significant to inconsequential. There are lengthy delays and in-stadium confusion, and in the end, a subjective on-field call is replaced by a subjective in-booth call.

TV network rules analyst: "That looks like a good catch to me, Joe. I think this call will be reversed."

On-field referee: "The call has been confirmed. Incomplete pass."

As video review has been expanded over the years, one of its biggest flaws is mission creep. A system is introduced to catch a certain infraction, but it ends up being used to re-litigate something else entirely. In the NHL, the offside review system was intended to prevent goals that resulted from a player receiving a pass while already beyond the blue line. Now, teams are frantically studying replays to see if they can spot an offside that might've occurred in a zone entry a minute before a goal.

Game 6 of the Stanley Cup Final turned on such a play. The Florida Panthers scored at the opening of the second period to cut a two-goal deficit in half, but the Edmonton Oilers successfully challenged the call. It wasn't the most egregious example of such a challenge considering the goal came soon after the zone was gained, but the decision hung on whether the whole of the puck and the entirety of a skate blade had crossed the line. With no available TV camera angle directly on the blue line, it seemed impossible for viewers to say for certain when the puck or skate lost contact with the blue. It was the furthest thing from a clear and obvious error. The replay booth overturned it anyway. Was it technically accurate? Maybe. Was it the type of goal the system was intended to disallow? It was not.

There's no better example of the unintended consequences of replay than what's played out at Euro 2024. Goals have been overturned for the most marginal of handball calls, the little graph spiking even when a hand slightly caresses the passing ball. Offside decisions are now analyzed to a comically precise degree, with high-definition cameras determining whether a shin, a forehead, or indeed a toe has strayed even a few millimeters offside in the buildup to a goal.

This brings scenes in which a goal is scored; the stadium erupts in joy (and, at the other end, anguish). And then, once everyone has settled down, there's a pause while the video official notices that the guy who made the pass to the guy who made the pass that led to the goal might've been just past the shoulder of the last defender when he touched the ball. Again, the call might be technically correct. However, the point of the offside rule is to prevent an attacking player from gaining an unfair advantage, not whether he has passed the defender by the absolute slimmest of margins. We now live in a world where a goal could be disallowed because a forward's hair is too puffy.

The irony is that sports viewers have only themselves to blame. The introduction of technology was a response to complaints about missed calls and officiating errors. The overall accuracy of decisions is up, but at what cost? A loss of excitement and spontaneity. Technical infractions are caught, but so are actions that don't violate the spirit of the rule.

There's probably no going back, though. It's too bad we weren't better at accepting that mistakes are made sometimes.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore

Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Imagine doubting Connor McDavid.

There was a time, not that long ago, when there was a fair bit of that going around. Not just from the Miami Herald columnist who called him overrated, a take that should haunt him for the rest of days had it not done exactly what it was intended to do: attract controversy and clicks for days on end.

But beyond that, the question of McDavid's legacy was a common one, especially as his Edmonton Oilers fell into a Stanley Cup Final hole: Did he need to win a Cup to be considered an all-time great? Did McDavid require a championship ring to justify all the McJesus hype?

All of it was nonsense.

To begin with, the notion of evaluating the legacy of a player who is 27 years old makes about as much sense as trying to drive a half-built car. McDavid's been around for a long time, but only because he came straight into the NHL as a teenager and won his first scoring title at 20.

He's lived up to the predraft hype - remember when he and Jack Eichel were considered 1A and 1B by some experts? Since that arrival, McDavid's piled up five scoring titles and three regular-season MVP awards, even if playoff success for his team hadn't truly followed until this season.

But that speaks to the main reason why the legacy talk is particularly daft: The Oilers, for all of McDavid's time in northern Alberta, have been a flawed team. They had a grim goaltending duo of Mike Smith and Mikko Koskinen, which later became a $25-million contract for free agent Jack Campbell, who now plays in the minors. Darnell Nurse, the defenseman with the $74-million contract, was heading toward one of the worst plus-minus ratings in NHL playoff history before turning it around in the Stanley Cup Final as the Oilers stormed back. Jesse Puljujarvi, the forward taken fourth overall in the draft the year after McDavid arrived, didn't work out in Edmonton, and is emblematic of the team's struggles to put scoring talent around its captain, with the obvious exception of Leon Draisaitl and now Zach Hyman.

The McDavid story has never been one of a generational talent failing to deliver in the playoffs, but one of a generational talent not quite able to drag his team past better, more complete rosters. He led the NHL in playoff scoring in 2022, with 33 points in 16 games, when the Oilers were knocked out in the West final by the eventual champion Avalanche. What more could the guy do? Lead the playoffs in scoring by even more? Only 11 players in NHL history have ever scored more than 33 points in a single playoff, and only one of those, Doug Gilmour in 1993, did it without reaching the Cup Final.

The players to exceed that total now includes McDavid himself, with 42 points in 24 playoff games, more than anyone has scored in a single postseason other than some guys named Wayne Gretzky and Mario Lemieux. The only player in the last 15 seasons with a total that even approaches McDavid's numbers this year was Nikita Kucherov's 34 points in 2020. Sidney Crosby's career playoff high is 31 points. Nathan MacKinnon's is 25. The best playoff season from Auston Matthews is, um, 11 points.

You want a superstar who rises to the occasion? How about the eight points McDavid delivered in Games 4 and 5 of the Final against the Panthers, when the Oilers were one loss from elimination. You want a player who delivers moments of magic that'll live in Stanley Cup Playoffs lore? Take your pick: McDavid's outrageous dekes of a pair of Dallas players to score in Game 6 of the West final, or his 1-on-4 absurdity against the Panthers in Game 5 that resulted in a tap-in goal for Corey Perry. Those highlights could take their place alongside Lemieux's wonder goal in the 1991 Cup Final, or Bobby Orr flying through the air in 1970.

McDavid's exploits will lose a bit of their shine, of course, if the Oilers can't finish what would be a history-making comeback with a Game 7 win Monday. But that shouldn't detract from anything McDavid has done to lead Edmonton this season, and in his career. He was one of the best prospects the NHL has ever known. And all he's done is prove worthy of all the fuss.

Michael Jordan didn't win his first championship until he was 27. LeBron James was the same age when he won his first. There would be some undeniable symmetry if McDavid became a champion at 27. But whatever happens in Game 7, there's still time.

Connor McDavid's one of the best to ever play hockey. And that isn't overstating anything.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore

Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

For years, sports have been trending toward hard data. Everything can be measured down to a granular level. Fielding-independent pitching. Unblocked shot attempts. Effective field-goal percentage.

And then there's goaltending. There are fancy stats for that position, too, but it remains one of the few sports outposts where the difference between a good player and a poor one sometimes just comes down to vibes.

There is science, in other words, and then there is Sergei Bobrovsky.

The 35-year-old goaltender for the Florida Panthers has given up just one goal in two games of the Stanley Cup Final against the most dangerous offense in hockey. Bobrovsky's 14-5 in these playoffs, posting a 2.02 goals against average, a .916 save percentage, and a pair of shutouts. It's the kind of performance you might expect from a two-time Vezina Trophy winner.

Except this is the same Sergei Bobrovsky who infamously has a habit of flaming out in the postseason. The same guy who, despite his $10-million-per-year cap hit, seemed about to be replaced in the Panthers net by a 20-year-old rookie and then was replaced by a 30-year-old AHL journeyman. The same Bobrovsky who, for most of his time in Florida, was the proof of concept for Why You Shouldn't Pay Goalies Big Money.

And now he's two wins from the Cup and the heavy favorite to win the Conn Smythe Trophy as playoff MVP.

Goalies, man. Enigmas in masks and pads.

Even in a sport with a history of unpredictable goalie outcomes like a rookie Patrick Roy or a veteran Tim Thomas, the Bobrovsky case is a weird one. Traded by the Philadelphia Flyers at 23 years old because there wasn't room in the crease for both him and Ilya Bryzgalov, another enigma who really was the case for Why You Shouldn't Pay Goalies Big Money, Bobrovsky landed in Columbus. He earned both of his Vezinas there but won just a single playoff series over seven seasons. After the second of those trophy-winning campaigns in 2017, he gave up 20 goals in five games as Pittsburgh quickly dusted the Blue Jackets in the first round.

Two seasons later, Bobrovsky had the good fortune to deliver his best playoff moment, a first-round sweep of the Tampa Bay Lightning, as he was entering free agency. After the Panthers lost Roberto Luongo to retirement, they swooped in to sign Bobrobvsky to a seven-year, $70-million contract.

It did not go well. The Panthers fell in the first round in his first year in Florida. In the following season, Bobrovsky lost the net to backup Chris Dreidger in the first round against Tampa Bay, got it back when Dreidger faltered, and then gave up five goals on 14 shots to get pulled again. The Panthers ended up handing goaltending duties to Spencer Knight, who had just turned 20 years old a month earlier and joined the team straight out of college.

Dale Tallon, who signed Bobrovsky to that monster deal, was replaced as general manager by Bill Zito, and Bobrovsky spent much of the next few seasons in trade rumors. But his contract had a no-movement clause, and there was little interest in taking on a veteran carrying such a big ticket.

By last season, Florida didn't even wait until the playoffs to replace him. With the Panthers fading from contention, coach Paul Maurice turned to Alex Lyon, an undrafted 30-year-old who had played 227 AHL games and just 24 in the NHL before last year. He helped Florida win six of its final eight to sneak into the postseason. Lyon was named the starter as the club met the Boston Bruins, who had just completed a historically great regular season, but Bobrovsky went back in net in relief in a Game 3 loss. He was the starter in Game 4 but promptly allowed five goals in a blowout loss.

A 34-year-old Bobrovsky was in yet another playoff hole, and the only question was whether Zito could unload him in the offseason.

And then he won three straight against the Bruins and kept up that sparkling form in a run to the Stanley Cup Final. It was a career reclamation act that came seemingly out of nowhere, ended all the offseason speculation, and rolled into 2024.

Bobrovsky led the NHL in shutouts this season with six. That's more than he had in his first four campaigns in Florida combined. What changed? The mood? Goalies, man.

And yet, there was what might have been an inflection point early in Game 2 against Edmonton on Monday night, when Mattias Ekholm, of all people, beat Bobrovsky on an odd-man rush with a shot that looked to have gone straight through him. Was this the moment Playoff Bobby turned into Classic Playoff Bobby, the version imploding in a blink? Were the Oilers about to put up a five-spot before the first period was over?

It was not, and they did not. Bobrovsky didn't surrender another goal, softie or otherwise, and even stopped Connor McDavid on a late partial breakaway.

The reclamation project continues. Who woulda thunk it?

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer to theScore

Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

Here is a list of Canadian NHL teams that have won the Stanley Cup since 1993: __

Here is a list of Canadian winners of the Conn Smythe Trophy over that same period: Cale Makar, Ryan O'Reilly, Sidney Crosby (twice), Duncan Keith, Justin Williams, Jonathan Toews, Scott Niedermayer, Cam Ward, Brad Richards, J.S. Giguere, Scott Stevens, Patrick Roy, Joe Nieuwendyk, Steve Yzerman, Mike Vernon, Joe Sakic, and Claude Lemieux.

There have been 15 Canadian Hart Trophy winners in that time. Nine world championships for the Canadian men's team. Three Olympic gold medals.

Canada, despite the lengthy Cup drought for teams based north of the border, is unquestionably still pretty good at hockey.

And yet, every spring, there is an attempt to give greater meaning to the collective playoff disappointments of Canada's NHL teams, as though they somehow create a nationwide melancholy and the country as a whole would be boosted if the drought could be broken.

To which I say: Bah. Canadian NHL fans outside Edmonton might want to see Connor McDavid lead the Oilers to the Cup because he's an incredible talent, and it is fun to watch great players succeed. But it doesn't make you a bad Canadian if you would rather watch the Oilers suffer, especially if you're a Calgary Flames fan. It's also not an indictment of your patriotism if you don't care either way. An Ottawa Senators fan is allowed to feel total indifference at this point of the season. (If we're honest, they've probably felt that way since about January.)

This playoff season, the question of Canada's Cup drought was placed in our collective laps quite early thanks to a couple of advertising campaigns that have been prominent on Rogers hockey broadcasts. In one, Chris Cuthbert narrates a Boston Pizza advertisement that recounts past playoff failures and exhorts Canadian fans to cheer for other Canadian teams. Maybe the drought was our fault all along?

A Co-operators insurance commercial, meanwhile, depicts Maple Leafs fans - sorry, fans of Generic Toronto Hockey Team for licensing reasons - removing their jerseys to support Edmonton and Vancouver as backup plans. (Let's hope they had alternative versions ready; otherwise, it seems like an indictment of Leafs management that the Co-operators marketing department wasn't worried about how this ad would play if Toronto was in the middle of a lengthy playoff run.)

The commercials suggest that a Canadian hockey fan's second-choice team should be another Canadian team. And if that team loses, they should pick the next Canadian team.

This is just weird. Should Los Angeles Lakers fans be expected to root for the Sacramento Kings because they are also based in California? Do Pittsburgh Steelers fans have the Philadelphia Eagles as their second-choice team for Pennsylvania reasons? Are Tampa Bay Lightning fans supposed to show pride in their state by supporting the Florida Panthers against the Oilers? This seems like the exact opposite of how fandom generally works, where a team's biggest rivals are geographically nearby. Senators fans hate the Leafs, as they should. And it's called the Battle of Alberta, not the Pleasant Renewal of Acquaintances of Alberta.

In many parts of the world, a person could be disowned for deciding to throw their support behind the team from the adjoining neighbourhood. Do you like Liverpool now, or would you like to remain in the will?

It's tempting to say this is all a media narrative; that the idea of rooting for Canadian teams just because they are Canadian is cooked up by people who aren't hockey fans in the first place. But stories about the Canadian NHL drought always find a few people who say that, yes, they hope that another Canadian team wins it. Which is, obviously, fine. Cheer for who you want! Maybe you just find Chris Cuthbert very persuasive!

There is actually a good reason for Canadian hockey fans to hope that Edmonton can manage the four wins needed to lift the Cup: We would finally be done with drought stories. No more questions about whether the pressure of trying to win playoff hockey in a passionate Canadian market is too much for the teams to bear. No more stories about how it's too hard to sign free agents in Canadian cities, or how hockey players don't get enough privacy in Canada and would rather just walk around anonymously, like a CFL player in Toronto. No more arguments about whether the weather is too cold, or the media too cruel, or the currency too colorful.

Edmonton could disprove a lot of those hoary theories in one fell swoop: It's a small market, the weather is not exactly ideal, and the fan base is wildly passionate. The Oilers even have free-agent signings playing significant roles, like Zach Hyman and Jack Campbell. OK, scratch that last one.

But just think of all the narratives that would be buried if McDavid, Leon Draisatl, and friends could beat the Panthers. It would take at least another five years without a Canadian team winning the Cup before anyone would dare to call it a drought again. Ten years? Five would at least be a start.

I guess what I'm saying is: Go Oilers.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.

Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The only surprising thing about the Toronto Maple Leafs' dismissal of head coach Sheldon Keefe is that it didn't happen a year ago.

Yes, yes, there were complicating factors. Team president Brendan Shanahan was on the verge of bringing back general manager Kyle Dubas last spring when a late fallout led to a course change and the somewhat hurried hiring of Brad Treliving to replace Dubas.

Treliving didn't have the time for a thorough coaching search and instead stuck with the guy he inherited. The logic is understandable: Why burst through the door, guns blazing, before you've even had the chance to figure out where the executive washrooms are located?

But how much more evidence was required to show that Keefe couldn't solve the riddle of the Maple Leafs' annual early exit? They lost to the Columbus Blue Jackets in the 2020 postseason - a team that hasn't made the playoffs since. They lost to the Montreal Canadiens the following year, a team that finished last in its division in each of the following three seasons. They lost in the first round in two of the following three seasons after that. Even when they did manage to win a playoff round last season in some strange twist of cosmic fate, they embarrassed themselves with a no-show against the eighth-seeded Florida Panthers.

Did they have some bad injury luck and fall victim to the vagaries of knife-edge playoff hockey? Sure. Run into some hot goalies? Yep (mysteriously, the other team always seemed to have the hot goalie). But four kicks at the playoffs is a lot of kicks. Under Keefe, the Leafs were like a luxury car with a steering misalignment: expensive, looks great, but always ends up in the ditch.

And while the epitaph for Keefe's time in the job will say that he led great regular-season teams that couldn't get it done in the playoffs, even that is a bit of a stretch. For all of Toronto's high-end talent, the Leafs managed just two second-place finishes and two third-place finishes in the Atlantic Division during Keefe's tenure. (They won the all-Canadian division in the COVID season, then promptly had their most embarrassing playoff loss.) The Leafs always looked a notch below Boston, Tampa Bay, or both, and this year it was Florida's turn to look like a more complete team.

That's where the path forward gets tricky: Keefe wasn't able to solve the Leafs, and they will remain a conundrum for the next guy. They have top-end talent that should form the core of a championship contender, but Dubas and now Treliving have been unable to find the right mix of players around them to either provide the scoring depth that's required at playoff time, or perform all the necessary greasy work that would allow the star forwards to cut loose like they might do on a random February night.

That bit about how the Leafs pay their Core Four so much that it makes roster-building a real challenge? It's not just the ramblings of the internet masses or a tired trope of talk radio. It's a fact. This season, the Leafs spent 48.5% of their salary cap on their top four forwards - Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander - according to CapFriendly. The Avalanche dedicate 44.3% to their top four, made up of three forwards and a defenseman. The Oilers pay 43.5% to their top four, also three forwards and a defender. The Bruins spend 40% on their top four, two forwards and two defensemen. You see the pattern here. The New York Rangers are closest to Toronto with 45.1% of the cap allotted to four guys, but they include two forwards and two defenders.

Those extra percentage points of cap room that other teams have beyond their top four players mean they can sprinkle a few million dollars elsewhere, which might have spared the Leafs from the constant churn at the lower end of the roster.

Cap constraints mean Treliving will likely end up trying to do the same things he did last summer: picking up veterans on relatively cheap deals, betting that some young and unheralded players can become reliable depth guys, and desperately hoping that the team doesn't enter another April while still trying to identify its No. 1 goaltender.

When Shanahan, Treliving, and new MLSE boss Keith Pelley meet the Toronto media on Friday, they are sure to be asked if more substantial changes will be made. Some version of, "How can you possibly run it back again?"

And while no one will say, "Because we have to," there's a good chance that's what they are thinking.

Could there be some imagined scenarios in which one of Tavares or Marner, both of whom are entering the final year of their contracts and both of whom can block any trade, would consent to a deal out of town for a package that doesn't make the Leafs worse in the short term? It's possible, yes. Is it likely? Not in the least.

Which means the next Toronto Maple Leafs head coach will be given more or less the same assignment as Sheldon Keefe and Mike Babcock before him. Here's your team, with some great parts, some good parts, and some that were all we could squeeze under the cap: See if you can figure it out.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.

Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

The Winnipeg Jets had an excellent regular season. They had 46 regulation wins, more than any team in the National Hockey League. Even with the statistical noise of loser points, the Jets finished with the second-best point total in the Western Conference, at a cool 110.

For this, they were granted a first-round matchup against the 109-point Colorado Avalanche, who carpet-bombed them into oblivion. (Technically a 4-1 series loss.)

The Carolina Hurricanes also had an excellent regular season. They racked up 111 points, had the most regulation wins in the Eastern Conference at 44, and perhaps most impressively, played before sold-out crowds all season in a place that's been a wasteland at various points in its NHL life. Great job, Canes.

For this, even after dusting off the New York Islanders in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs, the Hurricanes have been granted a second-round date with the New York Rangers, the only team in the East that finished above them in the regular season.

Welcome, again, to the NHL's incredibly frustrating divisional playoff format. It's one of the dumbest things the league continues to abide by - and this is the same NHL that for years insisted everything was going tickety-boo with the Arizona Coyotes.

Every spring, the divisional format spits out unfair pairings. Fairness is, admittedly, a fuzzy concept in professional sports, but in this case, it refers to the idea that the NHL regular season has meaning beyond simply being an 82-game dress rehearsal for the restart of the playoffs. Teams that perform well over that six-month slog should earn a decided edge in the initial playoff rounds. The NHL even acknowledges this to a point, giving the four division winners first-round matchups against the four wild-card teams. But instead of seeding the conferences one through eight, the second- and third-place teams in each division are paired.

Leaving aside the problematic instances when wild-card teams have more points than playoff teams in weaker divisions, the system really falls apart when one division is decidedly stronger than the other, which happens often. This year's Central has three teams with more points than any team in the Pacific other than the Canucks. The Metropolitan's two top teams, the Rangers and Hurricanes, had more points than any Atlantic team. This is how you end up with the Jets stuck against the Avalanche instead of a softer matchup against the Predators or Kings. The Oilers, six points back of Winnipeg in the West and with seven fewer regulation wins, end up paired with the 99-point Kings and brush them aside without much fuss.

This inequity would be easier to understand if there were some kind of benefit to it. The NHL thinks there is, with commissioner Gary Bettman insisting whenever he's asked about it that the league wants to preserve regional matchups in the early rounds to take advantage of classic rivalries. But that rarely happens. Three of the four divisions are geographically immense, meaning the system is just as likely to result in a pairing of teams that have nothing approaching a regional rivalry.

Edmonton has now played Los Angeles in three straight playoff seasons. They're about 30 hours apart by car, maybe a bit less if you really pin it. The Maple Leafs have been stuck trying to crawl out of the Atlantic Division, hockey's version of the deep and difficult American League East, which often matches them against a Florida-based team that has no rivalry with Toronto unless it involves tourists adding to the lines at Walt Disney World.

There's also the unintended consequence of the divisional playoff format, which is that it sucks the life out of what could be frenzied jockeying for postseason seeding as the regular season draws to a close. If one team jumps out to a big division lead, the next two can know by January that they're likely playoff opponents. Instead of a playoff picture full of uncertainty until the final days of the regular season, most of the pairings become evident weeks earlier.

It's not like any of this is new or unexpected. Other than the blip of the COVID season, this format has been around since 2013-14. Its problems have been evident for a decade. The solution is dead simple: Seed teams one through eight, then reseed after each round. The best regular-season teams get the easiest path. The teams that just sneak through as the 8-seeds have to play tougher opponents as they progress. Don't like it? Don't finish eighth.

Of course, that potential solution has been sitting there for a decade, too. And it's not like it's an alien concept: the NHL has used conference-wide seeding and reseeding before. Despite the flaws of the current system, it just refuses to go back to that format now.

It can be stubborn, this league. But one can hope. It did eventually come around on the Arizona thing, after all.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.

Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

If playoff hockey has a singular characteristic, it's unpredictability.

It's weird bounces and dogpiles in front of the net. It's Adrian Kempe batting a puck out of the air for a goal and Drew Doughty scoring on a breakaway despite not actually shooting the puck. It's Morgan Rielly firing well wide and the puck hitting two bodies on the way into the net.

It's upsets and chaos and no prediction is safe.

And yet, as sure as the sun rises in the east, the Toronto Maple Leafs find themselves in a first-round playoff crisis. Again.

Wednesday night's Game 3 loss to the Boston Bruins at Scotiabank Arena had all the hallmarks of Toronto's recent playoff struggles.

A power-play outage that failed to convert despite several excellent scoring chances? Check.

A strong game from the opposing goalie while the Maple Leafs netminder allowed a softie? Yes and yes.

Officiating controversies that only add to the anxiety? Yep.

A mysterious and undisclosed injury to one of Toronto's stars that's kept him out of the lineup for three games? Actually, that one's new. And since we're talking new things, how about the decision of radio announcer Joe Bowen to take to social media to shame the sleepy Scotiabank Arena crowd into acting like it hasn't been forced to sit there as punishment? When the play-by-play guy is sounding the Klaxon, things are dire.

The only surprising thing about any of this is that amid playoff hockey's Random Outcome Generator, events are unfolding so true to expected form.

The Maple Leafs' offense has been among the most high-powered in recent years and was again this regular season, second only to Colorado in goals scored. Then the postseason hits and the Leafs skate straight into the dead-puck era.

Toronto scored at least four goals in 44 games this season. The last time the Leafs scored at least four in a playoff game was 11 games ago when they put five past Tampa Bay in last year's first round. Other than their three-goal explosion against Boston in Game 2 on Monday, they've scored exactly twice in nine of their last 10 playoff games. In the other one, they scored once.

That consistency, in playoff terms, is baffling. Reasons can be offered for the annual spring slowdown, and they usually are: The Leafs are too reliant on skill to create offense, or they're too soft, or they're too top-heavy. Where is the sandpaper, Leafs Nation cries in unison. But even if you allow those criticisms, and overlook the fact Toronto's front office has been on something of an annual grit-acquisition strategy for years now to supplement its high-skill core, you'd think the odd playoff game would result in a scoring outburst just because these things happen. Ten of 16 playoff teams have at least four goals in one first-round game through Wednesday night.

At the other end of the ice, it's not that goaltender Ilya Samsonov has been consistently poor. Rather, the goal he allowed in the second period of Game 3 - a Trent Frederic shot from distance that beat him short side - continued a Leafs tradition of a weak goal that derails what had been a fine playoff game to that point. Toronto's been waiting for one of its goaltenders to go on a classic playoff heater for what seems like a lifetime, and none of them, from Freddie Andersen to Jack Campbell to Samsonov, has managed it for any length of time.

Meanwhile, the Leafs have been undone by everyone from Vezina types (Andrei Vasilevskiy) to cagey vets (Carey Price, Sergei Bobrovsky) to future journeymen (Joonas Korpisalo). Playoff history is littered with examples of series that turned on an unexpected goaltending performance. The Leafs, or at least this modern version of them, are still waiting for theirs.

The other thing that's familiar about all this is the caveats. It's early. The Leafs are only down 2-1. Even when the team struggled to get over various Boston- and Tampa-sized humps in recent seasons, it was always in the series and poised to turn things around if some of the vagaries of playoff hockey could just turn in its favor.

The same is true of this series. The return of William Nylander from his mystery injury, if it happens, could be just the grease to get Toronto's power-play wheels turning again. Samsonov could do that thing that goalies sometimes do and stand on his head. Maybe Joseph Woll will come in and do it. Maybe the lower bowl at Scotiabank Arena will be raucous and lively for Game 4 on Saturday, and the Bruins players will be intimated by playing in front of such a cauldron.

OK, that last one probably won't happen, no matter what Joe Bowen wishes. But the Stanley Cup Playoffs are supposed to be about weird things taking place, about surprises and flukes. Perhaps the Maple Leafs just need some chaos. So far, the familiar script isn't working.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer for theScore.

Copyright © 2024 Score Media Ventures Inc. All rights reserved. Certain content reproduced under license.

It's tempting to say that the Toronto Maple Leafs, as another postseason looms, are at an inflection point.

It's tempting to say that because the Leafs have been in Cup-run-or-bust mode for years now. April often seems like an inflection point. It's just no longer true.

From the point when former general manager Kyle Dubas built his roster around four elite and expensive forwards, every spring has felt like a test case of that model. Could a team with almost half its salary cap allotted to four high-end skill guys assemble enough talent elsewhere to go on a deep playoff run?

Even though the Leafs kept losing in the first round of the playoffs, the answer to that question from the front office appeared to be: Maybe. That is, it kept resisting calls to trade one of the star forwards, preferring to run the same core version of the roster back again, even as coaches and goalies were changed. The Leafs having a sad early spring exit was about as reliable as the Arizona Coyotes' arena drama.

Last season, they finally got over the hump by knocking off the Tampa Bay Lightning, only to pratfall in a second-round gentlemen's sweep by the Florida Panthers. Surely things would be shaken up. If not a smashing of the nuclear button, at least a controlled demolition. Except the only fundamental change came in the front office, with Dubas leaving even though team president Brendan Shanahan wanted to bring him back.

New GM Brad Treliving wasn't in the job long before he effectively endorsed the Dubas model, eschewing a shakeup and instead making changes on the roster's periphery. Auston Matthews signed for four more years. William Nylander re-upped for eight more seasons after this one.

And so, as the Leafs enter the playoffs, the stakes seem strangely low. They could easily get bounced in the first round again, which would set off an understandable round of exasperated groaning and hair-pulling among the team's fans, Toronto-area sports bars, and the executive suites at Rogers and Sportsnet. An eighth straight playoff disappointment is entirely within the range of possibilities.

It's just hard to see how that would lead to much of a reckoning, even if the fan base sharpens its pitchforks and local media lights its torches. Matthews and Nylander just signed those extensions, and had career years. Mitch Marner may be considered a prime trade asset, a star winger entering the walk year of his contract, except for the fact his deal has a full no-movement clause that kicked in last summer. John Tavares also has one year left on his contract, also has a NMC, and has less trade value to begin with, as he turns 34 in September and is no longer a point-per-game player.

Barring an extraordinary unforeseen development, today's Maple Leafs will look a lot like next fall's Maple Leafs, no matter what happens over the next two months - or two weeks if it goes poorly. If Shanahan and Treliving were going to give up on the Dubas model, they needed to do so sooner than now.

Marner said it himself last summer, explaining that Treliving reached out within days of landing the Leafs job to give his blessing to the roster he inherited.

"Brad came in and defended us all, really, and our team," Marner said. "It meant a lot to all of us to come in and do that."

It also meant a lot to Leafs fans who were desperate to see one of the star forwards moved.

Of course, the Leafs could make all of the preceding moot by actually going on the long playoff run that's so far eluded them. Matthews is scoring like he's shooting at a net 10 feet wide and Nylander, after an incandescent start to the year, has smashed his previous best points total. Marner missed time with a bum ankle but has been his usual dangerous self when healthy. Tavares has even taken on more of a shutdown role, which isn't normally what's asked of an $11-million center but may well be the best use of that salary.

But the talent of those four was undeniable last year, too. And the year before that, and before that, and you see where I'm going here. Whether they advance will likely come down again to the vagaries of playoff hockey. Will they run into a hot goalie? Will they be bailed out by their own hot goalie? Will they get enough scoring from their stars? Will they get enough big games from the assorted players Treliving assembled on the cheap to supplement the Big Four? If these questions sound familiar to you, it’s because they're the same questions asked around this time for years now.

And they're the same questions likely to be asked this time next April, too.

Scott Stinson is a contributing writer to theScore.

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