The Toronto Maple Leafs once again faced a winner-take-all Game 7 and once again, Brad Marchand, now a member of the Florida Panthers, was standing in their way. The Marchand and Matthew Tkachuk-led Panthers defeated the Maple Leafs 6–1 on Sunday, not only advancing the defending-champion Panthers to the Eastern Conference finals, but also leaving the ex-Boston Bruins star alone in the NHL history books.

He's the first player to win five winner-take-all Stanley Cup playoff games against the same franchise. Marchand, a Maple Leafs fan as a child growing up in Nova Scotia, initially had a little bit of fun at the team's expense during an interview on TNT.

While Marchand said that with a wink and a smile, he doesn't buy into the idea that he's the vanquisher of the Maple Leafs.

"Well I appreciate that but I don't look at it that way," Marchand said in response to a reporter who referred to him as Toronto's executioner. "I think if you look at the past, I actually haven't played well in Game 7's against Toronto. No one player wins any [game]. I just happened to be a part of good teams that have had the upper hand.

"But if you actually historically look at the games, I didn't play well. It wasn't me that beat them. It was our team..."

Marchand believes the Maple Leafs catch "unjustified heat" as a result of the playoff failures, an idea he later expanded upon, offering an interesting perspective. Noting his belief that the pressure of a second round Game 7 pales in comparison to a Stanley Cup Final game, Marchand said he thinks the stakes are ratcheted up by the media and fans to the point where it wears on the Maple Leafs players.

"When you're playing for an actual Cup, and you give up a three-game lead, and then you're in Game 7, like, that's a high-pressure game. Game 7 of the second round, yeah, it's a high-pressure game. But it's not compared to some other games that guys have played."

"So when you actually look at that, and then you see the pressure that Toronto faces, and everyone's talking about whatever the 20 or 30-year build up, I don't know what it is, but you see the fans and the way they're talking, like, they just beat the pressure into this team, and it's got to be tough on those guys to walk through the rink every day and not feel that. I mean, you see the way the fans treat them at the end, like, how do you not feel that every single day? And when you go through big games, you realize which are actually big games and which are just big moments."

The Maple Leafs have made the playoffs nine straight times since 2016-17, but haven't advanced past the second round in any of their appearances. They haven't reached the Stanley Cup Final since 1966–67. Given that history, it won't be easy convincing Maple Leafs fans to ease up.

But perhaps Marchand's words are worth heeding.

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This article was originally published on www.si.com as Brad Marchand Had Such an Interesting Perspective on Maple Leafs' Playoff Failures.

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