The Leafs’ ‘Core Four’ want to stay together — but should they?

when he seemed to relent“The goal remains the same, but perhaps the path needs to be shifted slightly, needs to be adapted slightly,” Dubas said. “You get in-between persistence and full belief versus perhaps being too staunch and rigid.”“I love it here,” said Nylander. “I don’t want to be anywhere else. This is where I want to win.”If the regular season is where players make their money, the playoffs are where they make their name.

Tavares is the only one close to hero status, after scoring the overtime winner that was this core’s first win in an elimination game. With Tavares’s goal — his fourth of the post-season —– the Leafs eliminated the Tampa Bay Lightning. But it was his last goal of the post-season as his — and just about everyone else’s — offence dried up. Matthews also scored in Game 6 against Tampa, but not at all against Florida.

As a group, they don’t score in the playoffs the way they score in the post-season, though there are bright sides. Nylander is closest to his true self in the playoffs. The one player who takes the brunt of fan criticism for a sometimes nonchalant approach to the regular season is the only one of the Core Four who comes close to his matching his regular-season points-per-game mark in the playoffs .had 14 points in 11 games, 1.

The offence for Marner and Matthews tends to come early in the series, not late when it’s arguably needed more.

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