In How Many Series Would You Say The Leafs Have Choked?

[Gorskyontario]

How ? Lol they were the underdogs in every single series except Columbus/Montreal

17' - cores rookie years vs Prime Washington
18' - Sophomore year vs Prime Boston, Bergeron, Chara, Marchand, Rask, Pastrnak, Krejci
19' - See above, Prime Boston again
20' - Absolute choke job vs Columbus
21' - Absolute choke job vs Montreal
22' - lost in 7 to Prime Tampa Bay with some extremely questionable calls in games 6 and 7
23' - lost to Prime Florida
24' - Matthews and Nylander missed multiple games with injuries vs Boston, lost in 7

Now this year '25, Threw away a 2-0 series lead and failed to show up for the 2 most important games on home ice. Game 5 and 7. They were the underdogs, maybe it's a choke ? I call it a disappointment rather than a choke, losing to the defending champs in game 7, a humiliating game 7

Now although most of those series aren't choke jobs, even as the underdog you expect the team to win at least 1 of those game 7s.

There has been numerous disappointing series but I don't see how anyone can say losing to prime Boston, prime Tampa, prime Florida is "choking"

I don't think a lot of people know what "choking" means in terms of sports.

Which year did the leafs get the most, and least respect in the handshake line?

 

[SavBigMoneyAtBedards]

Add 2025 to the list.

2-0 series lead
3-1 lead in game 3

Choked it away.

 

[Gil Gunderson]

Depends on what you define "choking" as. They choked up 3-2 in the series in 2019 and 2022 against Boston and Tampa. They weren't clearly the better team, but you're supposed to win a series when up 3-2. 2022 Tampa just dug in a bit more (helped by Vasilevskiy going god mode in Game 6 OT and all of Game 7), especially after Point got hurt in Game 7, but the Leafs outplayed the Lightning in that series.

2021 is generational choking, 2020 is mild choking. The 2020 Leafs weren't even that good compared to Columbus.

IIRC Leafs were slow to start until they fired Babcock. They were on fire to end the season after they hired Keefe.