The Toronto Maple Leafs Weren't Close. Stop Lying To Yourself

You know the retort about if your grandmother had wheels, she'd be a bike?
Well, now that the Florida Panthers have won their second consecutive Stanley Cup, there's a lot of that going on with people who are delusional about the Toronto Maple Leafs. And that covers most of their supporters.
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Their logic goes that since the Maple Leafs extended the Panthers to seven games in the second round of the playoffs, we can assume that the Leafs are once again very close to being serious Stanley Cup contenders. Heck, they're the second-best team in the NHL, some say.
Pfft. Legitimate Stanley Cup-contending teams don't take a 2-0 lead and enter Game 3 with a 3-1 lead against the Cup champs and fritter it away. And there is no Cup contending team that turns in the effort the Leafs did in Games 5 and 7 on home ice in that series.
Sergei Bobrovsky and Auston Matthews (John E. Sokolowski-Imagn Images)
Just because you lost to the champs doesn't make you almost as good as they are. The Panthers are the class of the league and they are light years ahead of the Leafs.
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