Inside the NHL: Leafs' demise has to leave Sabres smirking

The Sabres keep sitting by and watching this playoff spring, and life in the Atlantic Division continues to go their way.

The Bruins and Lightning lost in the first round and their championship windows are closing fast with aging stars. For its part, Boston may never get over blowing a 3-1 lead and the best regular season in NHL history in its series against Florida, especially if Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci both retire.

Buffalo News Buffalo Sabres writer Lance Lysowski examines the team's depth chart heading into the offseason and five pressing questions that …

The Red Wings and Canadiens had no lottery luck last week, so Connor Bedard isn't entering the division and causing a decade or more of problems. Meanwhile, the deadline for binding bids to purchase the Senators is Monday, and Ottawa fans were dealt a big blow in recent days when Vancouver-born actor Ryan Reynolds of "Deadpool" fame pulled out of a bid expected to push $1 billion because he wasn't granted exclusivity in the process.

But the best thing, the most entertaining thing – and, frankly, the most hilarious thing – happened Friday night. The Toronto Maple Leafs are toast again, sent packing in overtime of Game 5 by the Panthers in a series that saw them fail miserably after oddsmakers had branded them the Cup favorite following the triumph over Tampa that gave them a first-round win for the first time since 2004.

Now we have the real truth: The Leafs' victory over the Lightning was a flat-out fluke. And they have no choice but to make major changes. They can't run it back yet again with the same management, same coach and same player core.

"It took nine years and 504 NHL games, including a deadline trade to Toronto, for him to finally get a chance in the playoffs. And what a scene he's in the middle of now," Mike Harrington writes.

Toronto won three overtime games on the road and benefited from a less-than-stellar performance from Tampa goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy. After six straight first-round defeats, the Hockey Gods finally smiled upon the Leafs for a few days. The acorn met the blind squirrel. 

But it was back to playoff normal against Florida, with the top players flaming out and everything now back in question. A headline in Saturday's Toronto Star aptly said, "Now comes the seismic summer." For starters, ownership has to decide about president Brendan Shanahan and about the expiring contract of GM Kyle Dubas.

You wonder if Dubas even wants to stay at this point. There's a plum GM job open in Pittsburgh, and it's not hard to theorize that the Fenway Sports Group ownership – which put Theo Epstein in the top chair to finally break the Red Sox curse in 2004 – might be interested in another analytically inclined boy wonder to run the Penguins.

And maybe Dubas is ready to go somewhere else and escape the absurd glare that comes with the territory in Toronto. Memo to Leafs fans: It took the Red Sox 86 years. You're only at 56. You might have more waiting to do.

From this view, coach Sheldon Keefe has to go, for sure. He was not able to match wits with Florida's Paul Maurice in Round 2 and, as noted above, it's not like he did anything to outcoach Tampa Bay's Jon Cooper in Round 1. But he'll get other chances in the league. Perhaps sooner than later.

"This is a missed opportunity for our group,” Keefe said. “We believed that we had a team good enough to win the Stanley Cup, and we didn’t do that.”

Then there's the key players, who face some serious choices. You can't spend $40 million on your cap for four forwards to win one playoff series in seven years, and there are some ominous deadlines looming.

Auston Matthews had no goals against Florida and Mitch Marner had one. Both have no-movement clauses kicking in on July 1. Matthews will be an unrestricted free agent next summer and Marner will be in the summer of 2025. The Leafs can't possibly let either walk away for nothing. If Matthews won't sign an extension right now, he has to go. See how many future first-round picks you can get from teams with lots of cap space like Chicago or Arizona and retool both your roster and your cap. And how about teaming Bedard and Matthews?

"As a right-hand shot, Montour would look pretty darn good in the Sabres' top four right now," Harrington writes. "How about a pairing with Power? Dare to dream."

Marner just had his best season with 99 points and a Selke Trophy finalist nod. But he was often invisible in the second round, with one goal and two assists against the Panthers. If Matthews agrees to an extension, he might be the one sent packing.

"We've all got years left on our contracts,” Marner said after Game 5 loss. "I don’t know. It’s not up to us. But we've got a lot of belief in this group. We got a lot of belief in that core.”

The Leafs have two more years of captain John Tavares, he of the no-move clause, $11 million cap hit and no goals against Florida that matched Matthews. William Nylander has the best contract to deal, at roughly $6.9 million for next year. But he was their most dangerous forward in the playoffs. Would you really trade him now?

The club has nine unrestricted free agents, including Ryan O'Reilly, Michael Bunting, Alexander Kerfoot, David Kampf and rejuvenated blueliner Luke Schenn. Goalie Ilya Samsonov is an arbitration-eligible restricted free agent and due a raise from his figure of $1.8 million that he made this year.

The Leafs seem likely to go with Samsonov and Joseph Woll in goal next season but still have Matt Murray on the books for one more year and $4.68 million. Massive swing-and-a-miss by Dubas that Kevyn Adams has to be relieved he failed to execute last summer. Murray played just 26 games, going 14-8-2, 3.01/.903.

"The pressure on the Leafs started in training camp, not in this series," said Florida coach Maurice, who had two unsuccessful seasons running the Leafs from 2006-2008. "This is a different beast like no other."

Maurice is dead on. There is no pressure on NHL players anywhere like there is these days in Toronto. The fan and talk-radio glare is omnipresent. There is a media horde every day, albeit one that isn't remotely as hostile as it used to be. But everything around the Leafs is so tightly controlled that it leads to a tense atmosphere every single day. 

Toronto fans, of course, want to blame officiating, as usual. And there were no doubt some terrible calls against them. But there are against every team because NHL officiating and the league's Department of Public Safety have never been so inconsistent as they are now. Here's why the Leafs lost: They went 1-5 at home in the playoffs. They scored two goals in each of their final seven games. Their stars vaporized again. They had 53 shots on goal in the finale and scored twice. 

It wasn't officiating. This era of winning regular-season hockey is over in Toronto. They can't run it back. And as the Sabres make their ascent, they have to love another marquee team in their division suddenly getting plunged into uncertainty and transition.

Enough about lottery rigging

Here's a look at the Sabres' likely wish list for the NHL draft lottery.

In this view, Chicago shouldn't have had a first-round pick this season. It got a slap on the wrist for the Kyle Beach investigation and draft picks over multiple years should have been in play. But the NHL didn't take that approach, so the Blackhawks were in their spot in last week's lottery with the No. 3 odds.

They won the draw and will take Bedard, giving them another franchise-changing player just as soon as they cut the cord with Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews. It doesn't seem fair, but you still have to build a team around Bedard and it bears reminding that Connor McDavid still hasn't made a Cup final and he was drafted nearly eight years ago.

And enough of the social media chatter that the lottery is rigged. It's not. There were three veteran NHL journalists in the room when the draw was made. There's the league accounting firm as well. The numbers came out of the machine and it was one of Chicago's four-digit codes. That's how it works.

"I can't tell you how many people around the league who I consider to be very smart people were convinced that it was rigged," Sportsnet's Elliotte Friedman said on his daily "32 Thoughts" podcast with Jeff Marek. "I know people go on the Internet and they're all mad. And unfortunately with what happened, they're like, 'Rigged, rigged. This was fixed. This was fixed.'

"Fans are fans. I don't really have any problem with that. People react very emotionally. But people in the league on teams were like, 'This is rigged.' I'm like, 'Guys, come on.'

Marek called that kind of talk from losing teams "toddler tantrums." Total agreement here.

Was the lottery rigged when the NHL "let" McDavid go to Edmonton in 2015, when that might have been the least desirable spot in the minds of both the league and the player? Was it rigged when Rasmus Dahlin and Owen Power landed in Buffalo? The Sabres had the top odds in 2018 and 2021 and won the draw both times.

A final point on the lottery: In the wake of the Bedard draw, there's been lots of bemoaning bad lottery luck over the years by Arizona and Vancouver. From this view, the worst luck belongs to Anaheim. The Ducks had the best Bedard odds but got beat – just like they did for Sidney Crosby in 2005. They took Bobby Ryan at No. 2 that year and are expected to take Michigan's Adam Fantilli in that spot this year instead of getting Bedard.

Speaking of Bedard, EA Sports simulated his career stats and awards and got these numbers: He finished with 1,455 games, 739 goals, 1145 assists, 1884 points, four Hart Trophies and three Stanley Cups. 

Eichel on cusp of West final

Jack Eichel goes for his first berth in a conference final Sunday as Vegas takes a 3-2 lead into Game 6 at Edmonton, and the former Buffalo captain is a big reason the Golden Knights have held off the Flying McDavids to date.

Eichel had a goal and two assists in Friday's 4-3 victory, giving him six goals and seven assists for a team-high 13 points in Vegas' 10 playoff games. Among active players, only David Pastrnak, Nathan MacKinnon, Sidney Crosby (15 points apiece) and Eric Staal (14) had more points in their first 10 postseason appearances than Eichel.

Kozak is responsible defensively, blocks shots, shuts down opposing power plays, wins important faceoffs and, when necessary, defends himself.

• You have to feel bad for Lindy Ruff. A great Devils season ended with a Carolina overtime goal on a power play after a delay of game penalty for a puck over the glass. An eerie reminder of what happened to him in Game 7 of the 2006 East final between the Sabres and Hurricanes. Brian Campbell was in the box for the penalty and the go-ahead goal in the final nine minutes of regulation was scored by current Carolina coach Rod Brind'Amour.

Said Ruff: "I'm actually going to ask them to make the glass a little higher."

•The Bruins, Lightning, Avalanche and Rangers were eliminated in the first round. The Leafs and Devils were toast in five games in Round 2. That's a lot of star power gone. TNT already knows either Carolina or Florida will be playing in the network's first Stanley Cup final. Imagine if Dallas is on the other side. Ratings disaster looming.

• Can we finally learn from this spring to not get all insane about the trade deadline? I realize Canadian TV networks will never get that memo but we can all dream. The Rangers, Leafs, Bruins and Devils all got lauded for their work at the deadline and it got them nowhere. Same for Tampa, which lost its mind giving Nashville five draft picks and defenseman Cal Foote for fourth-line plug Tanner Jeannot, who couldn't stay healthy.