@ Pittsburgh

Only the Maple Leafs could get outshot by a significant margin and still stumble into a 7-2 blowout victory. It started with Oliver Ekman-Larsson finding the back of the net, followed quickly by Easton Cowan showing everyone why the fan base has been obsessing over his prospect profile for years. Bobby McMann and Dakota Joshua decided to pile on, making the score look like something from a video game instead of the heart-attack-inducing reality normally inhabited by this team. Even Nicolas Roy got in on the action, because apparently, everyone gets a turn at making us believe this year might actually be different.

Naturally, Sidney Crosby scored because the universe requires some level of balance, but even a vintage Sid moment couldn't stop the onslaught. Auston Matthews eventually buried one to remind everyone he still leads the charge, and Nicholas Robertson added a seventh goal just to ensure the fans in Pittsburgh felt as miserable as we usually do by mid-April. It’s a nice change of pace to see the team actually capitalize on their limited chances rather than passing the puck into a defensive black hole for sixty minutes.

Look, a five-goal win on the road is great, but let’s not start mapping out the parade route through the downtown core just yet. We’ve all seen this movie before—looking like world-beaters in late November only to forget how to skate when the calendar turns. Enjoy the offensive explosion and the depth scoring while it lasts, but please, for the sake of everyone's collective blood pressure, remember who we are dealing with. This win is likely just a clever ruse to make the eventual, inevitable collapse hurt that much more.