Playing the victim card, the Leafs look very mortal on locker cleanout day

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Amidst the hailstorm of forced contrition and stultifying cliché that is the Maple Leafs locker clear out day, what was the telling moment?

Maybe it was Mitch Marner when asked what it’s like to be a Leaf: “Obviously, we’re looked upon as kind of gods.”

I’m not sure which word in that sentence is more out of touch. “Gods” is bad, but it doesn’t work as well without “obviously.”

Maybe it was head coach Sheldon Keefe making an elaborate speech about accepting personal responsibility for another opening-round disaster – his fourth – versus his look of astonishment when someone asked how, exactly, he was planning on taking that responsibility.

It wasn’t just the eyes popping. It was his eyebrows shooting vertically at the same time. The two of them together produced an instant of pure bewilderment.

Or maybe it was John Tavares. They brought the captain out first, presumably so that he could embody the collective dismay of the club. Rather than skating or puck handling, that has been his true forte in Toronto.

Tavares stood up there whispering about how difficult it’s been to sleep and how he can feel these opportunities slipping by him and what it would mean to …

All of sudden, a peal of laughter from the back. A Leafs staffer hurrying to shut a door. William Nylander and Igor Samsonov popping out before he could, mid-punchline, having a great time. They looked up and saw Tavares doing his sermon and got quiet.

Like a lot of things, the Leafs should be better at this by now.

Throughout the scrums on Monday, you’d be hit with two realities – the guy in front of you, talking like he’d just gotten terrible news from the vet about Mr. Biggles; and the guys in the back, yukking it up like the last day of summer camp.

One easy thing the Leafs can improve this off-season – soundproofing.

As it dragged on, one’s mind drifted to an interview Nathan MacKinnon did after the Avalanche bombed out of the playoffs a while back.

MacKinnon was thrown one of those softballs the Leafs get all the time about being in the window and better things ahead for next year.

“Yeah, for sure, there’s always next year. That’s all we talk about, I feel like. I’m going into my ninth year next year and we haven’t won [anything],” MacKinnon said, vibrating with frustration.

That Avalanche team is different from the Leafs in several ways, but mostly in the way that the guy in top spot seems to take their collective failures personally. The Avalanche won a Cup the next year.

Contrast this with Auston Matthews sighing when asked about Marner’s troubles: “In my time here, I’ve learned there’s always a scapegoat. There’s always a narrative. There’s always something.”

A scapegoat is a person unfairly blamed for misfortune. Is this how the Leafs see themselves? As victims of a cruel and unsupportive city? Forget the power play. Could that be the root of the problem?

Watching them roll their eyes through questioning, I could think of worse hypotheses.

This isn’t to say that everybody needs to put on sackcloth for locker clear out, but if you’re going to go the mournful route, try to sell it. Maybe keep it down in back for an hour. Tears might help.

What you know you are absolutely not going to get is anything off script. People who are angry and/or frustrated are often unpredictable. Not the Leafs. They are always in control.

They’ve learned a lot of things in eight years and the main one is that they can’t use your words against you if you never say anything.

Every answer eventually tilts in the same direction. That nothing should change. That things are bound to get better. That they’re growing all the time, in all sorts of ways they can’t explain.

“It feels both attainable and a ways away,” said Morgan Rielly.

Rielly is the only Leafs star you might describe as thoughtful, but this is pure sophistry. We are getting perilously close to religion here.

The Leafs can’t believe in themselves because based on experience, no rational person could. This is just something they’ve learned to say. It gets people off their necks because a belief is irrefutable.

Do the Leafs know how full of it they are? Or have they been at it so long that they are starting to believe their own hype?

The one wrinkle in their happy families line – while the Leafs support the status quo without reservation, that protection does not extend to Keefe.

He’s in trouble. The coach usually does his postseason address on the same day as upper management. This year, he was lumped in with the players.

No Leaf said anything on Keefe’s behalf without first being prompted. And when they did, you weren’t exactly blown away by the level of praise.

“He’s been here a lot of years. Done a great job with our team,” Nylander said. “But in regards to what you’re going to ask me about his, uh, future, that’s not my decision.”

Please. Contain yourself.

Maybe the Leafs understand scapegoats better than I give them credit for.

To hear them tell it, this was another good year. They tried. They grew. They suffered through narratives. They managed to stick together. Sure, they lost, but that hurts every time and next time, it’ll hurt again.

If there was a line of the day, it belonged to Keefe. He must’ve spent a long time thinking about how he would begin his remarks. In a very real sense, they were his plea to keep his job.

You want to go with something that suggests losing is not your identity. That you are ready to lead the change. That this will never happen this way again.

This is what he came up with:

“Today is always a difficult day …”