Hoo boy. Wowie. Yikes.

It doesn't matter how they got there. What matters is that, yup, they blew it again. Get ready for an absolutely insufferable summer talking about, "What are the Leafs gonna do?" I'll go ahead and raise my hand here, admit I'll be as guilty of it as anyone else. The darkness beckons us.

But the reason this is gonna be so difficult to talk about is that there are so many ways this could go, and yet options are weirdly limited. They could, inexplicably, mostly stand pat. Teams have done that with highly talented cores before, keeping the top guys who continue underperforming year after year. I've heard comparisons to the early-90s Red Wings or the 2000s and 2010s Capitals, but the thing about those teams is that they got out of the first round without embarrassing themse