I’m pretty sure the common denominator is the problem.
I'm afraid It's pretty black and white when you have that many early exits in a row.
No that's literally just the correlation/causation fallacy. It's one of the most famous and common logical fallacies that exist.
Let's assume we accept they're winning to the best in the business, isn't it wise to look at what those teams are doing compared to the Leafs? Are they putting all of their money into a core four like the Leafs or have they divided their funds better?
Successful teams invest in their core and find efficiencies in their depth. A number of the teams that beat us did so by being comparatively healthy and winning the goalie battle with some of the best goalies of this era, but those aren't things you can just go out and pick up at the corner store.
Why do the Leafs core's numbers drop dramatically on the big stage while those teams get most of their guys to perform? Aren't those teams also up against a "good" team in the Leafs?
The core numbers aren't dropping off in isolation. They drop along with the rest of the team. Which is usually what happens with players in the playoffs. They rise or fall in general alignment with the rest of their team based on the situation the team experiences.
And unfortunately, what we've experienced in the playoffs hasn't been very conducive to production. We've been in the strongest division in the strongest conference, facing a ton of cup finalists on the runs of their lives, with strong defences and some of the best goalies of this era. Throughout the Matthews era, we have
averaged facing Vezina caliber goaltending. What do you think the scoring race would look like right now if teams were facing Vezina goaltending every night?
And when we have faced closer to league average goaltending, like through the two Tampa series, the production of our stars is suddenly a lot more normal.
Marner: 1.46 P/GP
Matthews: 1.38 P/GP
Nylander: 1.08 P/GP
Tavares: 1.00 P/GP
What a surprise! Most high-end players struggle the same as ours have when they run into situations that ours have. The difference is that those players have had more stat-boosting series than we have (and often didn't start in the playoffs until they were more developed), so their averages are higher.
And while we haven't had Vezina caliber goaltending ourselves, we generally have actually been quite good at limiting opposing superstars that face us, especially when we were a good defensive team, through strong defense and matching up elite defensive players like Matthews and Marner against them.
Of Montreal's top 3 regular season scorers, Toffoli dropped from 0.85 to 0.71, Suzuki dropped from 0.73 to 0.57, and Gallagher dropped from 0.66 to 0.14. Danault, who was deployed as their 1st line center, had 1 point. Caufield, their sniper, had 1 point; an assist.
Of Tampa's top 3 regular season scorers over the two years we faced them, Kucherov dropped from 1.41 to 1.08 (with just 5 ES points in 13 games), Stamkos dropped from 1.17 to 0.62, and Point dropped from 1.03 to 0.62.
Of Florida's top 4 regular season scorers, Tkachuk dropped from 1.38 to 1.00 (no goals), Barkov dropped from 1.15 to 0.60, Verhaeghe dropped from 0.90 to 0.80, and Reinhart dropped from 0.82 to 0.60.
Even throughout other years where we were bad defensively, we still saw some stars struggle in series against us. Ovechkin was 0.5 P/GP against us. In the 2019 playoffs, Pastrnak and Bergeron dropped 0.37 and 0.51 P/GP respectively relative to their regular seasons. Pastrnak dropped 0.63 P/GP last year.
I don't think there's anything wrong with wanting to change the core nor is it a major sin.
It's not a sin to feel the way you do. When you just look at things on a simple surface level, it's natural to feel frustrated and feel like something about this is cursed. It's not a common situation. But you should understand what's actually happening, because what you're advocating for will make us worse. And then we'll see these core members go off and dominate playoff scoring and win cups when they stop facing stuff like this, and we'll be all surprise pikachu face. I'd rather that scoring explosion help us win, not another team.
