Why Toronto is the most helpless franchise in sports

[Spyro Gyra]

Nobody has mastered mediocrity like the Leafs

Another year full of promise ending in devastation: such is the legacy of the Toronto Maple Leafs. On Sunday evening the Leafs laid their final egg of the 2024-25 season in front of a sold out Toronto crowd as they fell 6-1 to the Florida Panthers, ending their season in the second round of the NHL Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Crashing out might be par for the course for the Maple Leafs, but historically nobody in professional sports has mastered losing in the playoffs quite like the Toronto Maple Leafs. Sunday night marked the ninth season in a row the team has made the playoffs, only to be eliminated in the first or second round. It’s also now been a staggering 23 years since the team made it to conference finals.

If that sounds bad, I promise you it’s about to get much, much worse.

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[John Cocktoastin]

Shanahan's fingerprints all over this franchise. His time might be up.

[blues2112]

Disagree 2,112 percent.

Franchise is worth billions, making a Bomac load of money. Not just for itself, but for the other 31.

The team is an agent of that.

On ice? Different discussion.

[Bob39]

Actually what I think most people miss is that Toronto just isn't exceptional. Since 1967 they have no cups, but most NHL franchises have no or one cup in that time period. Only Montreal, Edmonton, NYI, Boston, Detroit, Pittsburgh, Chicago, Colorado and New Jersey have more than two. The Maple Leafs have been average sometimes, very good at times, incredibly bad only once or twice, but don't win the cup. This doesn't make them exceptional, this makes them normal. The problem is that, because of the size and prominence of their home market, people think they should be exceptional, so if they can't be exceptionally good we pretend they are exceptionally bad and tortured. They are just kind of bleh as an organization and team.

The New York Knicks are exactly the same it the NBA. People think that a New York basketball team has to be a banner franchise in the league but that's not true. Outside of about a five year period form 68-73 the Knicks have been pretty average.

In the case of both the Knicks and the Leafs if they played in Seattle the story line would be zero.