It’s a cycle that has repeated for most of a decade now. The Maple Leafs begin a season pegged as Stanley Cup contenders. They end a season labelled as playoff pretenders.

And then, in the hushed-tones wake of their elimination, another thing happens. The Maple Leafs vow to learn from their failures and come back stronger the following year.

If it’s happened once, it’s happened too many times in the mostly dismal post-season history of a team that’s won two playoff series in nine playoff runs since Auston Matthews arrived as the No. 1 overall pick in the 2016 NHL draft. Certainly it happened last spring in the wake of a Game 7 second-round loss to the eventual champion Panthers.

“We just have to learn to do things a little bit differently in big games, in big moments,” is how Crai

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