Beyond clear this team isn't built for playoffs

Another year, another playoff disappointment. It has become a rite of spring that cannot please the folks who control the Maple Leafs.

- DAVE FESCHUK

In an NHL post-season that is famous for being unpredictable, the failure of the Maple Leafs has become reliably perennial. In a Stanley Cup tournament that's often a picture of chaos, for eight straight years now Toronto's early playoff exit has been as accepted as another MLSE price increase.

If Saturday's first-round elimination at the hands of the Bruins was some rare setback, perhaps nobody would be too upset. Certainly nobody is suggesting the Leafs embarrassed themselves in a 2-1 overtime loss in a first-round Game 7 at TD Garden. Good job, good effort.

Much less good: The all-too familiar result.

It's been 10 years since team president Brendan Shanahan began overseeing the show, and in the course of that decade the slightest of post-season success has been a literal one-off. One charmed series victory over Tampa last year, promptly followed by a meek second-round bow-out to Florida, hardly validates Shanahan's annual expressions of faith in a core that has never failed to let him down.

Toronto's heartening late-series rally from a 3-1 deficit doesn't make losing OK. The Leafs are now 0-5 in Game 7s in the Shanaplan era. If you're not good at Game 7, here's a hint: You're probably not good at the playoffs. And the numbers say the Leafs simply aren't. Toronto is now 1-8 in post-season series since winning the draft lottery for Auston Matthews. They've compiled a dismal 421 playoff winning percentage in 57 playoff games since 201617.

Shanahan has been saying the same thing for years now: This team, as constructed, will get it done.

He'll probably say it again in the wake of Saturday's near miss.