BOSTON—Jake Gardiner looked like he wouldn’t sleep for a long time, like his stomach would feel hollow and bottomless through some long summer nights. The defenceman ran his hand through his hair, stared into space, tried to say it honestly. Tough night.

“Yeah, it was not the way we saw it going,” said Gardiner, after the Toronto Maple Leafs blew their third lead of the night in the third period and lost Game 7 to the Boston Bruins, 7-4. “Had a lead going into the third period, and personally I got to be better. A lot of this game is on me. And it’s just not good enough, especially in a game like this. It’s the most important game of the season, and I didn’t show up. There’s not much I can say, really.”

It wasn’t all Gardiner’s fault, even if that’s what some people will howl. In the biggest game of the season, goaltender Frederik Andersen failed as well: the first two goals in the third period weren’t goals a Stanley Cup goaltender should let in, and his save percentage for the series was .860.

All season, this team relied so heavily on the big Danish goalie. He made 120 more saves than any other goaltender in hockey, and is among the streakiest netminders there is. He packed all his selves into Game 7 and blew up, and the Leafs didn’t give him enough help to overcome it. On the goal to make it 6-4, David Pastrnak was left alone in front one last time for old time’s sake, with Gardiner standing in the wrong part of town at the end of a nightmare night for him. Gardiner has been a big part of this rebuild, but he was on the ice for five Boston goals, three at five-on-five, including two of the first three in the third.

“Disappointed, because we were set up perfect going into the third,” said head coach Mike Babcock. “I thought we really played well the last 10 minutes of the second. We used all our people. We were fresh. I thought we were the fresher team, and we were in the drivers’ seat.”









“(After the Torey Krug goal 70 seconds into the third), we were still in a good spot there. The next one hurt us. We didn’t respond. It was like devastation instead of just playing and executing in the third period.”

That’s where Jake and Freddie faltered: tie game, Game 7. Boston broke the tie at the 5:25 mark when Jake DeBrusk took off and Gardiner turned at the wrong time, and only hit DeBrusk after he had already released the puck. And Andersen, who kept the Leafs in the game for stretches, should probably have had both of those first two third-period goals.

And so the season ends, and the lesson may be that if you want to be great, you have to be relentless, and it takes everyone. Toronto led 1-0, 2-1 and 4-3 going into the third. They had to protect a one-goal lead for 20 minutes, which serious teams can do. And five years after the last Game 7 here, they rearranged the scaffolding to collapse in a different way. Last time, the Leafs blew a 4-1 lead. This time, they did it differently: They blew three one-goal leads, one at a time.

“A couple different reasons, but bottom line we gave up six before the goalie got pulled, and that means you need to score seven,” said defenceman Ron Hainsey. “We just could not hold the leads we had. We had three of them.”

It’s not the same, of course, and this series does not just rest of Gardiner and Andersen, as easy as that seems. The Leafs were awful as a team in Game 1; their penalty kill and defensive-zone coverage and goaltending blew up in Game 2. They didn’t win Game 4 at home with Bruins star Patrice Bergeron out. Auston Matthews had one goal in seven games. Morgan Rielly had a tough series. William Nylander wasn’t great. Nazem Kadri took a three-game suspension in the middle of a series on a dumb revenge play.

“Not to justify it or say what I did wasn’t wrong, but three games in a playoff series where every single game’s (magnified), that’s tough to see,” said Kadri. “(Watching) was terrible. It was terrible. I know when I’m out there I can help the team win, I can make an impact.”

“I thought the first half of the series my play probably wasn’t good enough,” said Matthews, who had 27 shots in the series and one goal. “And then the second half of the series I had chances. I thought I did things right for the most part, and couldn’t capitalize on the opportunities. Sometimes that happens. It’s frustrating for sure. You always want to contribute on the scoresheet. It’s frustrating.

“These are the moments we hope to be in in the future. We have to find a way to make the most of it. We were in good position, up by one in the third, and a couple of mistakes cost us. They’re at home, they have home-ice advantage, the crowd was buzzing, next thing you know there’s two in the back of our net and we’re chasing the game.”

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So Gardiner ate it, because they still had a chance with 20 minutes left. He’s a good player. He really is. He played the most minutes of any Toronto skater in the series. But what did Babcock say about Travis Dermott a couple days ago?

“Well, he’s got a lot to learn,” Babcock said. “Confidence is one of those things, you’ve got it one day in the National Hockey League and it goes away quickly. You’ve got to keep your nerve, you’ve got to continue to make plays, and you’ve got to be good defensively. But the defensive stuff stands out more. If you’re on the ice and the puck goes in, the coach remembers that. So the guy pushing you out wants you to be safe, then he wants you to make plays. But he wants you to be safe first.”

This organization puts a lot of premium on how players perform in the playoffs, and Babcock likes players he can trust. So, tough night.

“There’s no really explanation,” said Gardiner. “Felt fine. It just seemed like everything I was doing ended up in the back of the net. Yeah. It’s going to be a tough one to swallow, that’s for sure. I let a lot of people down. But you know what, hopefully I can come back better from it. It’s too bad.”

But this series was about more than just one period, and it’s up to the franchise to determine what this means, and what exactly was accomplished this season. The NHL’s playoff system pushed Toronto into a series with a top-four team, but that’s the game. Most of the real core — Matthews, Mitch Marner, Rielly — got better, and more kids arrived. The Leafs survived two elimination games, one on the road. And they lost to a team that aims to win a Stanley Cup this year. It happens.

But that’s Toronto’s goal, too, and now come decisions on who is part of the voyage going forward, from the general manager on down. Toronto stepped forward this season. They improved. And they ended, more or less, in the same place.

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