But what this edition must bear, as of Friday when Florida bumped off Washington, is the NHL’s longest streak without a first- round series triumph.
The Leafs had what politicos like to call ‘winning conditions’. There was no devastating injury during the series as befell John Tavares, Jake Muzzin, Roman Polak and others at crucial moments since 2017. Tampa suffered the only one, to Brayden Point early in Game 7.
No Leaf went rogue like Nazem Kadri and became a suspension side show, other than fourth liner Kyle Clifford getting one game at the start.
There weren’t any soft goals that stood out against Jack Campbell, just untimely ones and he out-played the all-world Andrei Vasilevskiy up to Saturday.
For the most part, Toronto checkers threw a blanket over Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, while its offensive stars, Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner, combined for 17 points in the series. In the dots, the Leafs were even better than their league leading regular season mark of 55.1%, while the Lightning was 15th of 16 post-season entries.
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