Will the real Toronto Maple Leafs please stand up?

The Toronto Maple Leafs are not a serious hockey team.

For the umpteenth time under Sheldon Keefe, the Leafs took a giant dump against an inferior opponent on Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena spotting the Columbus Blue Jackets a 5-0 lead by the second intermission. Then, in typical Leafs fashion, they stormed back with five unanswered third period goals before ultimately losing 6-5 in overtime. To contextualize things, it was like tracking a cross continent flight that you thought possessed the modern-day Babe Ruth only to find out after the fact that he was actually on his couch the whole time in sunny Los Angeles petting his dog named Decoy.

The definition of insanity personified.

Any way you slice it, there’s nothing this team has done through the first 27 outings of the 2023-24 campaign that suggests that they’re any different than previous incarnations of the squad. They’re consistently inconsistent, and while that may easily fly over the course of 82 regular season games, it certainly does not in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.

Having said all that, the team does deserve some semblance of credit for mounting one of the most improbable comebacks in recent memory to salvage a point. Usually, they’re the ones blowing the lead, so it was nice to see them on the other side for a change.

In the grand scheme of things though, the underlying issues with this team remain the same. Luckily, they’re just really good at masking their problems. Plain and simple. Indisputably, the most perplexing part is their unpredictability. Call it immaturity, call it what you want, but at this point, it’s understandable to question if this team has what it really takes to climb the summit.

Change comes in a variety of different forms. With that in mind, it’s up to Brendan Shanahan, Brad Treliving, and others to figure out what the next steps in the process should be. By now, one thing’s for certain: This isn’t it.

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