The Toronto Maple Leafs finally got to Round 2 of the NHL playoffs, and they lost 4-1 to the Florida Panthers. Mike Stephens wonders: what's got to give?

Leaf fans just want to be normal.

It's hard to believe, given their veracious temperament and flair for the dramatic. But deep down at the fan base's core is a universal truth: The desperate, (dare I say) passionate yearning to fit in. 

To experience what others experience. To, well, be normal. 

The only problem is the Maple Leafs themselves are incapable of succeeding or failing in a normal manner. Slice up the eras, gerrymander the timelines, and nothing changes. Toronto's losses are historic, grandiose implosions. And their wins, few and far between, come stapled with an asterisk – either applied directly the moment or shortly thereafter. 

This season was supposed to be different. The start of a new era or a needed next step in their current one. This was when the team would finally rise to the moment rather than shrink from it. And, for a second there, they did. The Maple Leafs slayed their dragon to book a second-round ticket 19 years in the making. 

For a moment, Leafs fans could celebrate as other fan bases do. They were granted admission into the club of teams that have accomplished the bare minimum of playoff success. 

And then came the asterisk. 

A team that barely squeaked into the playoffs upset the best regular-season team in NHL history – who also happen to be Toronto's biggest rivals – and set the stage for a dream second-round matchup. The Leafs had home-ice advantage. The weight of the world was off their shoulders. 

And then the Leafs nearly get swept, going down 3-0 before anyone could even blink while finishing off a stretch of seven consecutive games in which they scored two goals – the franchise's most futile in 13 years. 

That's quite the asterisk. 

"We lose the series in the first three games" explained Sheldon Keefe in what might be the final media availability of his tenure as the Maple Leafs coach. 

It's true. And that's the problem, frankly. 

The advancement of advanced stats in recent years has done a lot to broaden our understanding of hockey's chaos, but there is still something to the concept of a killer instinct. 

However you choose to define that trait, the Maple Leafs did not have it at any point versus the Panthers. They should have won. On paper, this was the superior team. Not to mention, Toronto outplayed Florida in four of their five games, controlling pretty much every area of play except for the scoreboard. The Panthers made mistakes all series long, just as the Leafs did. The only difference is that one team made their opponent pay for them. 

So, despite overcoming their biggest organizational hurdle, the Maple Leafs ultimately failed to escape the very same questions that loomed over the club the last time a Florida-based team ended their season on home ice. Now, in the weeks ahead, we are finally going to get some answers. 

And it all starts behind the bench. 

Kyle Dubas may leave the Maple Leafs over the summer. He may stay. No one knows how his contract situation going to play out, as the organization has kept things extremely close to the chest on that front all year long. But regardless of who ends up keeping or inheriting the GM role, their first order of business should be finding a new coach. 

In a way, Keefe has proven to emulate the innate tendencies of his team – when the going gets tough, revert to your comfortable and often misguided habits. 

For the players, that means doing things such as searching for the perfect shot instead of heaving pucks at a goalie who struggles to track them through traffic. You know, obvious stuff. 

For Keefe, it means putting Justin Holl in the top four, Alex Kerfoot in the top six, William Nylander on the second power-play unit and David Kampf's fourth line out for offensive zone draws after TV timeouts. 

Anyone with even a passing interest in the game can tell you those strategies don't work, and the numbers back it up. Holl was on for 18 of the 35 goals Toronto surrendered this post-season despite being scratched for three games. Kerfoot has received countless top-six auditions in his four years as a Leaf and never earned a spot. Nylander was arguably the team's best forward throughout the playoffs, and Toronto's power play went 2-for-9 versus Florida with him on the second unit. Kampf has a career-high of 11 goals and the Leafs have a trio of $11 million forwards who surpass that before Halloween. 

The math isn't hard to do. But these are comfortable habits for Keefe – a form of tactical muscle memory. So, when it's time to face the music, that's what he'll turn to. Every single time. And that simply isn't good enough. 

After yet another futile end, a "missed opportunity" as Keefe himself called it post-game, something has to give. That something should probably be him. 

The team itself likely won't look too different, though. 

“We all got years left on our contracts," answered Mitch Marner when asked if he would want another kick at the can with this core. 

"I mean, I don't know. It’s not up to us, but we got a lot of belief in this group. We got a lot of belief in that core. It sucks right now, but I got belief.”

Barring a radical shift in organizational philosophy, one likely spearheaded by Dubas' predecessor looking to make his own stamp on the team he inherited, there's a good chance Marner gets his wish. Trading John Tavares might be the biggest shoe to drop given he's the oldest of the core, but the captain has a full no-move clause, and even if they get him to waive it, his $11-million cap hit might force teams to ask the Leafs to retain salary – which is an immediate no-go. 

It all hinges on if Dubas leaves. If his return is simply a matter of contracts, MLSE must solve that immediately. He's earned it, having pulled out all the stops to build a team that, on paper, should have absolutely challenged for the Stanley Cup. An exodus from Dubas could cause the core to follow suit. Matthews is extremely close with Dubas and may lose faith in the long-term direction of the club if they let him walk. Tavares was Dubas' first and largest free-agent signing. Nylander was infamously promised that he would not be traded as long as Dubas was around. You get the picture. 

It does seem as if cooler heads will prevail, though, and the architect of an extremely successful hockey team who has managed to consistently acquire elite talent without gutting the organization's prospect and draft capital will be retained. 

Factor in how the Leafs feel confident in their ability to re-sign pending free agents Ryan O'Reilly and Luke Schenn, and a good chunk of this roster seems likely to stick around for at least another season. 

Again, barring a massive change in the corporate hierarchy, the biggest departures will be on the peripheries, with Holl, Kerfoot, Simmonds, Bunting, Aston-Reese, Gustafsson, and maybe even Kampf expected to hit the ol' dusty trail, replaced by younger, cheaper additions. 

But it begins and ends behind the bench. Change the chess pieces all you want, but if the person in charge of maneuvering them remains the same, it's tough to imagine progress being right around the corner.