Another heartbreaking Game 7 loss in the first round results in the Toronto Maple Leafs being ranked the most tortured fanbase via Daily Faceoff.
Tortured NHL Fanbase rankings:
Which franchises have put their fans through the most suffering?
The DFO staff grade all 32 teams on the sympathy scale in this vote, curated by @scotmaxw:https://t.co/qoWgV4IHiZ
— Daily Faceoff (@DailyFaceoff) July 18, 2024
In terms of where they ranked compared to other Canadian teams, the only teams within their vicinity are the Canucks in third and their provincial rivals, the Ottawa Senators, in fifth. Only one other team from Canada cracked the top 10 in the Winnipeg Jets who placed eighth, while the Calgary Flames, Edmonton Oilers, and Montreal Canadiens round out the list by placing 11th, 12th, and 13th respectively. As for who finished in last place on Daily Faceoff’s list, that distinction would go to the Vegas Golden Knights.
It really should come as no surprise that the Leafs find themselves at the top of a list ranking the pain and suffering endured by their fans because the team has put them through the wringer in the 57 years since their last Stanley Cup win. Their recent struggles have been well documented with only one playoff series win since the lockout ended in 2005, but it goes well beyond the current era of ineptitude.
Since 1967, the Leafs have only reached the third round of the playoffs five times and three of them saw them either swept or eliminated in five games. The closest they have come to reaching the Stanley Cup Final was in 1993 when they lost in seven games to the Kings and the only other instance where they were within this vicinity was 2002 where they fell in six to the Hurricanes. Never mind the nearly six decades of failure, they have never won three rounds or more during a single playoff run in their entire existence.
Beyond just the playoff failures, the Leafs were unable to unearth talent that they drafted and developed to become among the best in the NHL until this current era of William Nylander, Mitch Marner, and Auston Matthews. Before that were years of trading for players and not getting a lot out of their draft picks as a whole and them finding getting successful picks themselves were the exception and not the norm. The best they were able to develop in-house were arguably Wendel Clark, Felix Potvin, Nazem Kadri, and Morgan Rielly.
The star players of bygone eras such as Rick Vaive, Doug Gilmour, Mats Sundin, and Phil Kessel were players they had to trade for and that resulted in capital being given up that the other team used extremely well. Scott Niedermayer, Roberto Luongo, Tuukka Rask, and Alex Steen are just some of the long list of players that other teams got in trades with the Leafs that continue to haunt the franchise to this day even though the players have long since retired.
Then you have this modern era which started with so much promise and has failed to deliver for the better part of a decade up to this point. While the probability of the Leafs this many Game 7s consecutively is astronomically low, the fact remains that nothing has been done to try and rectify the problem and change their fortunes for the better. Hence why the temperature with the fanbase is currently at a fever pitch with the likelihood of the team running it back with the Core Four for a seventh straight season looking more likely with each passing day.
All of which is to say that the Leafs have earned their distinction as torturing the fanbase more than any other team in the NHL. Until they finally end the curse and return to the promised land, that is not going to change anytime soon.
