What will the Maple Leafs do after yet another disappointing end to a season?
The Bruins in 1971 came rollicking into the postseason as the gargantuan favorites, fresh off the Cup win in 70 and having rolled up a record bounty of 399 goals in the regular season (surpassed a decade later by the powerhouse Oilers). Its hard to find a parallel for Torontos soul-crushing Round 1 loss to the Canadiens, the mighty Maple Leafs booted from Stanley Cup play after holding a 3-1 series lead against a ragtag CH outfit that entered with the worst regular-season record (24-21-11) in the 16-horse field. William Nylander may have to go to provide financial flexibility for the Maple Leafs. Like these Canadiens, the 71 Habs also sent their heavily favored opponent packing in seven games, finishing the job on Boston Garden ice (the Leafs likewise expired at home). But that was a much different Montreal roster in 71, stocked with no fewer than 10 players (Ken Dryden, Jean Beliveau, Serge Savard, et al) who would go on to be enshrined in the Hall of Fame. In terms of legacy, the 2021 Habs are more akin to the Washington Generals than the Flying Frenchmen. Advertisement  Shell-shocked as their dispirited players packed bags on cleaning day Wednesday, Leafs management offered the expected lines. Team president Brendan Shanahan noted the need to soldier on in tough times, while recognizing that his emotionally brittle, underperforming bunch lacked an essential killer instinct.  OK. It didnt look from here, admittedly some 500 miles to the southeast, that the Leafs succumbed to a club that was imbued with killer instinct. It looked more like the Leafs remained absent a franchise defenseman (not new), and an elite No. 1 goaltender (not new Part 2). Perhaps to Shanahans point, the Leafs did miss a certain tenacity from their top forwards. Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and William Nylander definitely need a growth spurt there, but grit develops from culture and coaching, rather than, say, dipping into the UFA market for a player with that profile. Advertisement  The Leafs look like they need Shanahan and general manager Kyle Dubas to spend these next months enrolled in summer school engineering and economics courses. The Leafs fortunes and failures are built around a lineup weighted too heavily on top-skilled forwards, a small number of whom eat up a whole lot of cap space. Shut them down  as the Habs did in Games 5, 6, and 7  and there isnt any more there to carry the day. Maple Leafs GM Kyle Dubas has plenty of work to do this summer after another playoff disappointment. Nathan Denette/Associated Press  If anyone in the front office questioned that, then getting bounced out the front door of their own building in Round 1 should have proven it to them once and for all. The payroll math is daunting, especially in the NHLs flat-cap economy. Their four top-paid forwards  Matthews, John Tavares, Marner, and Nylander  average $10 million each, tying up essentially half the cap of $81.5 million. That math wont change over the next three seasons. By the eye and calculator of Dave Poulin, ex-Bruin and now a Toronto-based TSN commentator, the Leafs have nine players returning for 2021-22 and only $18.6 million in spending power to add nine more players just to fill a 20-man roster (three players short of essential staffing). At most, they can spend an average of $1.7 million each on players 10-20, which points to a bunch of fourth-liners and spare defensemen. Truth is, the Leafs are stuck, and they could be jammed up for at least three more years. They cant move Tavares (four more years at $11 million cap hit). The Blue and White fandom wont stomach dealing Matthews ($11.6 million) or Marner ($10.9 million), two sublime offensive talents. They certainly can deal Nylander  and might have no alternative  who is the cheapest of the bunch at $6.9 million. Advertisement  With Nylander off the books, they might be able to use his money to nab a franchise goalie in the free agent market (projected to include Tuukka Rask, Pekka Rinne, and Devan Dubnyk. Or they could find a partner to swap a No. 1 goalie for Nylander, but franchise goaltenders typically have no-movement clauses attached. Not an impossible trade to make, but a very tight fit to find maybe one trading partner. The 2020 free agent market saw Alex Pietrangelo, the Blues franchise defensemen, command $8.8 million a year from the Golden Knights. And that was in a pandemic-challenged market. Just as in the goalie scenario, no ones giving up a franchise defenseman for the slick, productive Nylander. Round and round it goes for the Leafs, hogtied by their own spending on a few forwards and a belief that, come playoff time, offense can carry the day. Even the run-and-gun Oilers of the past, for all their glorious goal scoring, eventually added the personnel to ratchet down on defense in the postseason, and backed it all with Hall of Famer Grant Fuhr in net. It is going to be one long, painful summer in Toronto, one without obvious answers toward ending what is now a 54-year Cup drought. Advertisement  NO DEAL  Best move one  Torrey didnt make  The Islanders dominated the early 1980s, with coach Al Arbour leading New York to four consecutive Stanley Cups. Unknown  The Bruins-Islanders series is a reminder that, of the many great moves Bill Torrey made in engineering the Islanders dynasty of the early 80s, the best probably was just saying no, repeatedly, to legendary Canadiens GM Sam Pollock. In the spring of 1973, Pollock hounded Torrey for weeks, hoping he would surrender the No. 1 pick in the June draft, which the Islanders earned by going a stupefying 12-60-6 in their inaugural season (head coaches: Phil Goyette and Earl Ingarfield). Torrey politely, but sternly, rebuffed Pollocks many entreaties. Pollock made the last of those offers in the seconds leading up to Torrey announcing his selection at the draft, held in those days in the Queen Elizabeth Hotel, just up the street from where the Habs minted Cups at the Forum. Torrey held fast and, as expected, selected the great Denis Potvin, the franchise defenseman and blue line anchor of the franchises four Cup wins (1980-83). With the rookie Potvin aboard and Al Arbour their new coach, the Islanders cut their losses by a third (19-41-18) in Potvins first season and hoisted their first Cup only seven seasons after Torrey batted away Pollocks myriad bids. Pollock, by the way, engineered the trade with the Bruins in the summer of 1964 that sent Ken Dryden to the Habs just days after the Bruins made Dryden the No. 14 pick in the draft. Advertisement  I dont know how many times Sammy and I walked around the block on that one, Torrey told your faithful puck chronicler in the thick of the Islanders Cup run. I listened. But I wasnt giving up Denis Potvin. No way. I think he knew it, or at least should have known it. I was adamant.  Torrey, who died three years ago at age 83, never made public what Pollock put on the table. The Habs that spring had won their sixth Cup in Trader Sams tenure as GM, and they won thrice more leading up to his leaving the job after the win in 1978. Pollock no doubt offered up a player or two from the varsity roster, including the likes of, say, Claude Larose, Bob Murdoch, and maybe Michel Plasse. All would have fit Pollocks volume model for such deals. The Habs also made four high picks (Nos. 8, 17, 22, and 32) in that draft. Given Potvins pedigree and profile, which also had WHA clubs chasing him, its possible that Pollock offered two or more of those slots to Torrey. Once turned away by Torrey, Pollock picked Bob Gainey in the No. 8 hole. Not a bad consolation prize  a four-time Selke winner as the NHLs top defensive forward and the Conn Smythe winner in 79 as playoff MVP. At age 28, Gainey also began an eight-year tenure as Habs captain. Had Torrey flipped the No. 1 pick and used the No. 8 to select Gainey, the ex-Peterborough Pete no doubt would have been a foundational piece for the Islanders. But no one in that draft, including Lanny McDonald (No. 4, Maple Leafs) was Potvins equal. Torreys no carried the day, and ultimately framed the dynasty. Beyond the hiring of Arbour and overseeing the drafting of Bryan Trottier, Mike Bossy, Clark Gillies, and others, Torreys other most astute moves included the acquisition of Billy Smith from the Kings in the 72 expansion draft and the March 1980 deadline deal, also with the Kings, to add Butch Goring. As great as Potvin was, the four-Cup run might not have happened without that Goring glue being added to the forward corps. His last game in the NHL was with the 1984-85 Bruins and he remains a curious, if not dumbfounding, omission to the Hockey Hall of Fame. ETC. League may  never learn  Winnipeg's Mark Scheifele (55) was suspended only four games after leveling Montreal's Jake Evans (71) in the final seconds of Wednesday night's Game 1. JOHN WOODS/Associated Press  In the end, the NHL again only nibbled at the edges of attempting a culture change when slapping Mark Scheifele with only a four-game suspension for his assault of Canadiens center Jake Evans in Game 1 of the Winnipeg-Montreal series. If the Jets stretch the Round 2 matchup to a sixth game, Scheifele will be back in the lineup Friday, and he certainly has the talent to be the difference between the Jets winning or losing the series and advancing to the Cup semis. Meanwhile, no telling how long Evans will need to recover from the pulverizing body slam Scheifele dealt him, requiring the ex-Notre Dame standout to be stretchered off the ice. Zero. The NHL, as required by the CBA, placed Scheifele into the wash-rinse cycle of its justice system and the Magic 8 Ball in the office of George Parros, head of player safety, came up, four games. The next customer through the door, and there surely will be another customer, will be subject to the same wash, rinse, and repeat. The Magic 8 Ball never stays cold for long. Gone are the days when a league commissioner could step in (hello, Bowie Kuhn) and invoke the good-of-the-game standard and lay down the law. The one time he did it, kicking Dale Hunter to the curb for 21 games because of an ugly hit on Pierre Turgeon in the spring of 1993, Gary Bettman was less than three months on the job as NHL commissioner. The whole justice process has since been rolled into CBA talks, filtered through lawyers, and the result has been that crazy acts perpetrated by the likes of Tom Wilson and Scheifele continue to come along almost at the rate of broken carbon sticks. The Players Association offers nothing in terms of trying to assure a safer workplace. And the band plays on. At some point, maybe, the leagues Lords of the Boards, GMs, coaches, and players will ask why they continue to suffer such fools and their despicable actions. They dont need them for the league to succeed, nor do they need them to sell the playoffs. The NHLs postseason product is, hands down, the most thrilling and entertaining in North American sports, full of speed, drama, athleticism, crazy hops, flared emotions, questionable (sometimes stupefying] officiating, and often boundless suspense of overtime. Accepting all that as fact, proven decade over decade, we are left to conclude that its only the league itself that doesnt believe it, doesnt have enough faith in its own product to stand up to bad actors and say, Beat it!  Scheifeles actions warranted a 10-game suspension, with reinstatement subject to Bettmans review after the Jets winger served his time. That would have caught everyones attention and perhaps helped trigger a culture change to prevent another NHLPA member from being strapped into a stretcher and wheeled down the tunnel. Failing that, maybe a 20-game suspension would do it the next time. Or perhaps a half-season banishment. It would sink in, eventually, that callous, reckless, predatory acts have no place in the game. These guys just have to start believing in themselves, their product, and their fan base. The NHL is an entertainment business, and theres none of that to be found in seeing medical personnel rush the ice and seeing the horrified, stunned looks on the faces of other players, no doubt wondering, What if Im next?  Loose pucks  Tuukka Rask hinted after Game 3 that he may be battling a minor injury through these playoffs. Frank Franklin II/Associated Press  Tuukka Rask again hinted after his Game 3 win over the Islanders that hes dealing with an injury. The guess all along has been that its something in his lower back. But keep in mind, butterfly goaltenders put great pressure on their hips, sometimes resulting in labral tears that can require surgery. No telling if that is what Rask, 34, is dealing with, but it could explain his slow(er) recovery time after saves and his somewhat diminished practice schedule  Joe Thornton, 24 years removed this month from being chosen No. 1 by the Bruins in the draft, said Wednesday that he had yet to decide whether to come back for a 24th NHL season. Jumbo produced a meager 1-01 in the Maple Leafs seven-game collapse to the Canadiens. Great career, despite no Cup, and should be a first-ballot Hall of Famer. Thornton ranks No. 6 for games (1,680), the first 532 of which were here in the Hub of Hockey. The three players acquired for him  Marco Sturm, Wayne Primeau, and Brad Stuart  finished with 2,768 games, 506 of those for the Bruins  The Bruins have three of the five highest-paid players headed to July 28 free agency: Alex Ovechkin ($9.5 million), Ryan Getzlaf ($8.25m), Taylor Hall ($8m), David Krejci ($7.25m), and Rask ($7m). Maybe thats enough to end the Jeremy Jacobs is cheap narrative. But probably not  Calgary stepped up this past week and will host the Womens World Championship (Aug. 20-31), filling the void left when COVID-19 concerns caused Halifax abruptly to cancel the tournament in April. Sadly, the women wont get to play inside the Corral, the iconic old rink, adjacent to the Flames current arena, that was razed just months ago. When the Flames moved from Atlanta to Calgary in the summer of 1980, the Corral was their home until the Saddledome was erected leading up to the 1988 Winter Olympics. Two Bruins memories from the old Corral, which had boards, especially in the corners, that were inordinately high: 1. During one practice, forward Bobby Newsy Lalonde, all 5 feet 5 inches of him, skated by a small gathering of reporters standing at ice level, and all that could be seen of Lalonde was his helmet, which appeared to be attached mechanically to the top of the boards like some arcade prop; 2. Rogie Vachon, in one wild goalmouth scramble in the Bruins net, finally was able to get back upright on skates just when the puck zipped by him for a goal. The shot went right through legs, while he was standing, facing the crossbar. Everyone has a bad night. Even Hall of Famers. Kevin Paul Dupont can be reached at kevin.dupont@globe.com. Follow him on Twitter @GlobeKPD.