"F***ing right there": Nylander, Matthews talk on Leafs core's playoff failures
Another spring, another debate about how to fix the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After the Leafs suffered a 2-1 Game 7 overtime loss to the Boston Bruins on Saturday night, you can bet there were all sorts of questions being floated by the fanbase about how exactly the team would look next season.
And ever since John Tavares was brought in as a free agent in 2018 — establishing a “core four” set of star forwards along with Auston Matthews, William Nylander, and Mitch Marner — there have been championship or bust expectations for the team.
But with Toronto seeing their seventh first round exit in the last eight years, it was inevitable that players would be asked about the group’s viability.
“I don’t think there’s an issue with the core,” Nylander said following the loss. “I think we were f***ing right there all series, battled hard and got it to Game 7 and OT. That’s a s***ty feeling.”
Nylander scored Toronto’s lone goal in the loss while scoring twice in Game 6 to force the series-deciding game.
“This is as tight as the group I’ve been a part of here. And I feel like we say that every year, but I mean, it truly was an incredible group, incredibly tight. And the way we stuck together through the ups and downs of the regular season and postseason, as tight as a group as I’ve been a part of,” Matthews added.
The players’ boss also answered a few questions about the future of the franchise.
“We have been talking about this for a long time. We have been trying to break through for a long time now. Any answer is going to fall on deaf ears in that sense, and I get that,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “This group was different this year. The core that you are referring to wasn’t different. The group around them was different. The feeling was different. We played different.”
Keefe himself is on the hot seat after another playoff exit, though no determination on his future has yet to be announced.
“In this series, I thought we showed signs of a team that could win. We look at this team, and we have a core group of guys with some young guys who are really coming,” Keefe added. “Maybe that is a little bit disconnected right now in terms of the young guys coming to support, but there are a lot of good things happening — and that happened in this series with how the team played, bought into a plan, and found success to give us a chance to compete here.”
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