William Nylander just freaking said this

It's funny how people hate on Nylander for soft plays from time to time, but he is the only high payed player on the team that comes through for them in the playoffs.

The hell you want the guy to say? He’s not gonna go out there and bury everybody.

What do you expect him to do? Throw all his team mates under the bus? Marner will waive his NMC. .

Matthews and Nylander are the core. Tavares, Marner and Reilly could all get traded tomorrow and I wouldn't bat an eye.

if shanahan and keefe were lost this off season i wouldn't be mad.

Defending the Leafs is a lost cause: for 57 years.

I remember seeing this lockers footage of Matthews and Marner on their phones and checking out their stocks on their trading apps, laughing. This was during the COVID pandemic when plenty of people were losing jobs. These are two manchildren who began playing with big money before being mentally mature and they have a very faint idea of what it is to fight to earn something because they were superstars and millionaires before achieving anything. A bunch of years ago they brought in Tavares assuming he would be the leader for this team. Well, that was a big miscalculation. Tavares is a good guy I'm sure but he couldn't be leader by producing less than these two, and he wasn't quite old enough or didn't have the resume to stand up to them and straigthen them out. It's not Matthews or Marner or Nylander or even Tavares who is the problem, it's the guy who built this team through his puppet GMs. Shanahan has to go. He is the one who engineered this core.

Matthews always looks like he's bored, uninterested, and unattached to his teammates. He only really lights up when he's talking about his goals and stats.

No player is going to attack his team mates in the end of year presser lol.

I thought the peripheral players for Toronto played pretty well. Matthews checked out when he didn't get goal 70. I don't think he sees the value in winning in playoffs, when he is rewarded for goals in regular season. Nylander just plays his game and if it goes his way then great, if it doesn't don't expect any hard work or sacrifice. I actually sort of like that about him. His comments on the bench show he has no patience for criticism or stress during the game. Marner is a spoiled soft kid, and a waste of money. Tavares is probably the worst captain in the NHL. I'm not a Leaf fan, that's just how I see it.

"We got to game 7" -- Willie is maintaining the lowered expectations of the common Leaf fan. A seven-game first round loss, or winning one of five in a second round is sold as acceptable.

From an Avs fan that is rooting for the Avs first, but was also pulling for Toronto 2nd, I think Marner and Tavares have to go. Keefe needs to be fired along with management. Tavares looked slow and Marner was uninspired and not playoff tough.

He’s not wrong. We didn’t have him or Matthews for several games. No team can overcome missing its 2 best players. Having said that, trade Marner.

Problem with being "right fucking there" is that champions don't aim to be right there - they aim to steamroll their opponents. There's not a shred of evidence that anybody on this team brings that energy with them.

tbh the bruins top centres were on the third line last year....talent wise leafs were leaps and bounds above the bruins...i think leafs spent to much on the top core players and need to balance it out. Id be sending marner somewhere else

Wonder how Marner would feel about waiving his NTC and move on to a legitimate franchise

“One goal away from pulling off the comeback” Sure… And the Bruins were one goal away from knocking them out in 5 games (hit the post at the end of game 5, then lost in OT). Goes both ways. Hockey is a game of inches… and most everything in the playoffs comes down to close calls

They should move the Leafs to Quebec 😅

Keefe is a bigger problem then “the core” of all the series and years, outside of one game there is not much to point at …PP? Yup and Marner. Keefe not as big a problem as past years but still.

They need to get rid of Reilly and they need a number 1 goalie. He let Pasternack skate right by him on that set play. You could see that play developing 2 seconds before it actually happened. I'm pretty sure Boston practiced that play just in case that exact scenario came up.