Journalist and podcaster fires a shot at Leafs Nation over their response to the Leafs laying an egg in Vancouver
The Leafs have made a bit of a habit of coming out flat against inferior teams in recent years. It's no secret that this core certainly has some issues to overcome in that category, but the silver-lining is that they hold a pretty strong record over playoff competition, and there are no bottom-feeders in the playoffs.
Saturday's loss in Vancouver was a particularly embarrassing one for the Buds, especially in the third period when they allowed a pair of shorthanded goals less than a minute apart. Needless to say, the fanbase wasn't too thrilled to watch another 2 points slip away because of bad habits and a lackluster effort against one of the league's basement teams.
The Leafs have probably allowed 15-20 points slip away this season against teams like Arizona, Vancouver, Montreal, Ottawa and Chicago, among others. Instead of competing with Boston for 1st in the league, they're holding onto a narrow 5-point lead over Tampa for 2nd in the Atlantic Division and trying to avoid losing out on home ice advantage in Round 1. Naturally, fans are upset, but podcaster and journalist Ari Shapiro doesn't think Leafs Nation has anything to be upset about.
-Shapiro on the reaction of Leafs Nation to Saturday's loss in Vancouver
The bottom line here is that if you're a contending team, you simply don't take nights off. There's never a good excuse for a poor performance. Whether these guys stayed up a little too late the night before, drank a little too much, or for whatever reason, simply weren't focused - the team let themselves down and let the fans down. If the team didn't have a habit of losing in spectacular fashion to a much weaker team, that's one thing. But the Leafs have been losing games to bad teams for several years running and fans have a right to be upset, especially the ones who travelled and paid money to see that mess live.
| POLL | ||
MARS 7 | 199 ANSWERS Journalist and podcaster fires a shot at Leafs Nation over their response to the Leafs laying an egg in Vancouver Are Leaf fans justified to want more from this team than losing to bottom-feeders? | ||
| Definitely, the fans deserve better | 141 | 70.9 % |
| No, people need to stop whining | 24 | 12.1 % |
| I thought nothing mattered until the playoffs? | 34 | 17.1 % |
| List of polls | ||
