It would be harder to script a more embarrassing stretch for the Leafs since 2017. The promise and potential from that time has been so thoroughly squandered it isn't even funny. It's like this era has been designed to be as mentally and spiritually cruel as possible to us as fans. It'd be one thing if Matthews, Marner, and Nylander flamed out and busted, or if this team fell out of playoff contention and had to do a pseudo-rebuild. It's another thing to be a consistent playoff team and lose in round 1 ever single f***ing time regardless of opponent or place in the standings. The Leafs have been just good enough to make the dance (never elite enough to win the Division of course, forget even the Conference or the President's Trophy) but not good enough to make any noise in the playoffs. Our one series win came against an exhausted Tampa team on the back of three OT goals, and we got smacked right back down by Florida in round 2, suffering a Gentleman's Sweep.
There really is no sports franchise like this one in the entire world. We've got three of our top ten all time franchise scorers on the team at the exact same time and in all likelihood when their time here is done we'll want to forget the entirety of their tenure together. What other professional sports team can say that? Forget a Championship, this group couldn't even give us a couple of memorable runs like the Sundin and Gilmour Leafs did. The Marleau-Thornton Sharks who were the poster-boys for being regular season heroes managed to win the President's Trophy once and their Division multiple times to go along with multiple playoff series wins, including a couple Conference Finals appearances.
Unfortunately due to a rapidly closing window and our "esteemed" captain all but demanding trades from the GM, our entire future is gone. Mortgaged on this sad-sack core that has proven nothing and given us nothing but misery and a large sense of contempt for them. Since nothing is impossible there is a miniscule chance that this group figures it out and does something worthwhile this season and gives this franchise a reason to bring them all back for next season and beyond. But we've seen enough from this Leafs core to know that the most likely outcome is another first round exit, if not a complete collapse out of the playoffs with the way they're playing under Berube.