from Dave Feschuk of the Toronto Star,

If Babcock doesn’t steer the Maple Leafs into round two on his third straight try, he’ll have found himself on the losing end of a playoff series for the eighth time in nine attempts. He hasn’t won a playoff series since the lockout-shortened 2013 campaign. He hasn’t won a playoff series in the wake of an actual 82-game season since 2011. And while it’s true that he’s coached a lot of underdogs, both here and in Detroit — given Babcock’s super-coach status, let’s just say he’s overdue to overachieve.

Don’t tell him that. When it comes to methodically building in excuses for failures to come, Babcock’s a natural PhD — piled higher and deeper. He’s fuelled the critique of his GM’s roster all season. The Leafs, he’s told us, aren’t “long” enough on the back end, don’t play “heavy” enough up front, haven’t endured enough “scars” from playoff failures, don’t have the requisite “depth” throughout. He had the gall to assess the timely acquisition of Jake Muzzin as “not perfect — it’s what we got. It’s what was available, and we’re going to make it work.”

But it’s beginning to occur to more than a few Maple Leafs — and it can’t have escaped Dubas’s notice — that there could be another reason why the Maple Leafs just under-delivered on the most anticipated regular season in franchise history. Why did the roster get better while the points in the standings got fewer? Why did the power play and penalty kill both suffer year-over-year dips? Why did Auston Matthews, the only Maple Leaf to offer anything approaching public criticism of the coach, flatline statistically? Why’d the Leafs overuse the stretch pass and over-pressure on D?

There’s a chance the catch-all answer is coaching.

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