Will Toronto Maple Leafs make playoffs?

[Kevin Pacey]

Will the Toronto Maple Leafs make the NHL playoffs?

For the 2019-2020 season, my answer would be "No"!

When in doubt, remember they are a cursed team.

I gave up being a Leafs fan after 40+ seasons. Too much punishment. The straw that broke the camel's back was when they failed to make the playoffs for the third year in a row - they hadn't done that since they were the St. Pats. So, I became a Habs fan. Too bad I missed enjoying all those years Montreal had a modern dynasty, before the big drought for them began, in the mid-1990s.

wikipedia.org/wiki/List of Toronto Maple Leafs seasons:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Toronto_Maple_Leafs_seasons

[Vladimir Drkulec]

The biggest screw-up by the Toronto Maple Leafs was letting backup goalie
Curtis McElhinney go last year. It probably cost them 10 points in the standings. He seems to have slipped a bit this year so maybe that was what they were afraid of.

[Kevin Pacey]

I don't watch the Leafs very much anymore, except when their game affects the Habs, or there's little else on. When the Leafs did make the playoffs last year, TV commentator(s) were observing now and then that (ex-)coach Mike Babcock was not playing the Leafs best skaters as often during a game as he ought to have been doing.

[Kevin Pacey]

Tonight there's nothing much to watch on TV, so I turned on the Leafs game vs. the Florida Panthers. The latter are leading by 4 goals, with about 6 minutes left in the third period. Lots of time for the Leafs and those who root for them to suffer, not enough time to make a comeback (unless they were playing the Leafs, perhaps).

At this stage the Leafs are in a playoff spot again, but are starting to slip (lucky for them there's a third point available in the NHL's bizarre scoring system, if a team gets beat in a given game after regulation). Will they stumble into the post-season anyhow? Maybe, but they could be out after the first round, yet again (especially if they have to play Boston).

P.S.: The Habs are really cursed this year (and so is my backup team to root for, Ottawa). Maybe I generally jinx teams by rooting for them.:(

[Kevin Pacey]

theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/article-Maple Leafs head into All-Star break on a wave of boos, jeers and ridicule after thumping by Black Hawks:

https://www.theglobeandmail.com/sports/hockey/article-maple-leafs-head-into-all-star-break-on-a-wave-of-boos-jeers-and/

[Kevin Pacey]

Ottawa Sun/Traikos: It could happen: Dangerous Maple Leafs team may not even make the playoffs this season:

https://www.pressreader.com/canada/ottawa-sun/20200205/282179358075179

[Kevin Pacey]

Well, the Leafs technically did make the post-season in 2020, partly ensured by the covid-19 interruption of the regular season. So, the Leafs were in a middle spot of the top 12 Eastern Conference teams, and they thus entered the preliminary qualifying round, vs. Columbus. The Leafs were eliminated in that best of five series, in the fifth game (played tonight). Thus technically they missed Round 1 of the Playoffs, where the usual number of 16 teams in total will play in 8 different series.

In other news, I'd note that the top four teams in the East and the West had a 4 team round-robin in each Conference, to determine the seeding of the teams into round 1 of the playoffs, with no danger to any of the teams of being eliminated due to a poor showing in their respective round-robin.