Earlier this season, NHL great Wayne Gretzky did something Leafs fans didn’t want to see but probably should’ve done themselves a long time ago. He got off the Toronto Maple Leafs bandwagon. And it’s starting to look like the smartest decision anyone in hockey made all season.
Back in April, during a segment on NHL on TNT, Gretzky made his stance clear even if it went against the grain of the regular-season hype. The Leafs had just wrapped up the regular season and while fans were getting swept away in playoff predictions with the Leafs finally breaking through, Gretzky was quite the opposite.
“I’m off the Leafs bandwagon,” he said matter-of-factly, adding, “Because I just think Tampa Bay is a better team right now.” Sitting beside him, Paul Bissonnette forever the Maple Leafs optimist, urged him to rethink.
But well Gretzky was just right.
Fast forward to the playoffs, and what unfolded for the Maple Leafs was something fans know all too well. Game 7. Home ice. Hopes sky-high. And then… disaster. A 6-1 humiliation at the hands of the Florida Panthers. There was no fire, no pushback.
It was the kind of loss that make you question whether this team ever understood what was really at stake. No wonder the home crowd in Scotiabank Arena threw jerseys and water bottles toward the bench.
One doesn’t even have to be a Leafs fan to feel secondhand heartbreak (is that a thing? it should be). If there was a way to rewrite “Game 7 PTSD,” this was it. And the most painful part? It was just another chapter in the same old story.
It’s getting to the point where Leafs’ collapses are just expected. It’s been 21,203 days since Toronto last lifted the Stanley Cup. 8,797 days since they even made it out of the second round. 7,699 days since they won a Game 7. And let’s not forget the infamous night 1,913 days ago, when they lost to David Ayres—the AHL Zamboni driver turned emergency goalie for the Hurricanes. These numbers sure represent the emotional mileage of being a Leafs fan.
The years of hope, followed by disappointment, followed by more hope, then disaster. It’s exhausting. It’s humiliating. And honestly, it’s become tradition.
As for Paul Bissonnette, who tried so hard to believe, even he couldn’t take it anymore. After the blowout Game 7 loss, he tweeted what many fans were already screaming into their pillows: “This is what they do. They tease you. They dangle the carrot. Then they rip your heart out. I’m not falling for it this time. It’s over.”
And who can blame him? How many times can you show up just to get crushed again?
The worst part is, this could very well be the end of the Maple Leafs’ Core Four as we know it. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and John Tavares have carried the identity of this franchise for the better part of a decade. And yet, the more time passes, the more they seem frozen in that potential, never quite becoming what everyone believed they could.
Marner’s future is now completely up in the air. Some insiders believe he’ll walk in free agency. Others think he’ll be traded before that happens. Either way, he looked shattered after the Game 7 loss, and not in a “we’ll be back” kind of way. More like a goodbye. And that hurts. For fans, for the team, maybe even for him. (for me most, forever Marner apologist)
In a twisted, poetic kind of way, Brad Marchand might have had the final word. After Florida’s Game 7 win, the ex-Bruin captain turned Panther smirked during a TNT interview and delivered a line that probably sent Leafs fans spiraling: “We just had to BeLeaf.”
He said it last year too, only while wearing a Boston jersey. This year, he said it from the visitor’s locker room in Toronto. Same line. Same burn. Different city.
Gretzky saw this coming. He knew this team wasn’t built for it (and I should have too)—not yet, maybe not ever. So he bailed. And now, Leafs Nation is left holding the emotional wreckage. If the greatest hockey player in history says, “I’ve seen enough,” maybe it’s time fans stop blaming the media, or the refs, or bad bounces.
Maybe it’s time to look in the mirror and accept that belief, alone, isn’t enough. Because sometimes, no matter how many times you yell “Go Leafs Go,” the only thing going is your sanity.
So yes, Gretzky was right. Tragically, perfectly, heartbreakingly right.