Look up, look way up at that photo of the Leafs saluting the fans after they’d lost to the Washington Capitals in the first round of playoffs in 2017. Everyone was so philosophical then that the Leafs had done a thing they hadn’t done in years: made the playoffs in a way that didn’t seem like a fluke and acquitted themselves where there.
Those days are gone. The world moves fast, and when you want to do the rapid-method rebuild, which the Leafs have done to a T (or maybe that should be to a JT), you have to put that kind of thinking right behind you.