It was a night for even optimistic Maple Leafs fans to feel despondent, a night when it seemed abundantly clear just how their favourite club has fallen.
The Leafs were so non-competitive and so unexciting in a 2-0 loss to Nashville on Tuesday night that it seemed after the game as if the entire city's shoulders sagged with hopelessness.
Hundreds of miles away, Brian Burke felt that sag.
"I understand the frustration of our fans," the Leafs' president and general manager said yesterday. "We weren't good enough in our last two home games, not by a mile."
Prior to the loss to the Predators, the previous Leafs home start had produced a desultory effort in a 4-2 loss to Florida. In both games, there seemed very few players in Toronto jerseys determined to prove to their new hockey boss that they want to stay with the club.
Burke, set to move into his new Toronto house in the next two weeks, caught only the third period of the Nashville loss, having spent most of the evening in Boston carefully watching defenceman Matt Gilroy of the Boston University Terriers, probably the most sought-after U.S. college free agent available this spring.
If fans wonder what exactly Burke is doing these days, there's your answer. Looking for players.
Along with Tyler Bozak of Denver University and Notre Dame centre Christian Hanson, son of Dave Hanson of the famed Hanson Brothers from the movie Slap Shot, the 24-year-old Gilroy might be ready to step right into an NHL lineup this spring.
That, of course, is the kind of opportunity only a weak sister like the Leafs can offer, although it didn't help them lure Swedish free agent Fabian Brunnstrom last summer.
"The way we've drafted, we've got to try and sign as many college free agents as we can," Burke said. "The idea is, sign five and hope two make it."
On the NHL front, Burke's just starting to get some trade nibbles. Anton Stralman's back with the parent club, perhaps to be showcased. The Leafs were toying with the idea of putting in a waiver claim for Vancouver goalie Curtis Sanford, but probably won't.
And bigger moves? Well, if you're expecting Burke to get in on the bidding for Vinny Lecavalier, if there is bidding to be had, you can forget it.
The Leafs aren't in a position to be offering a package of futures for the Tampa captain and every team should be leery of enormous contracts when the salary cap could be going down in a year.
There will be those, of course, who will remember how Cliff Fletcher turned a very bad Leafs team into a competitive one partway through the 1991-92 season by acquiring Doug Gilmour in a blockbuster trade.
But that was before the salary-cap era and NHL trades in general, let alone monster deals, seem to have all but evaporated these days.
"Significant trades do not exist in the NHL until much closer to the trade deadline," Burke said.
"We have to wait for the market to work in our favour."
The trades Burke has in mind, of course, are those that will see assets from his NHL roster - Nik Antropov, Tomas Kaberle, Pavel Kubina, Alexei Ponikarovsky - converted into draft picks.
Demand for experienced help won't noticeably increase until February, however, so right now there's not much Burke can do except wait and scout.
That won't provide much solace to Toronto fans, some of whom are already growing restless, perhaps expecting Burke's thunderous arrival in late November to have paid more obvious dividends by now.
But this franchise is in too big a hole and the NHL is now a league in which major transactions appear only rarely.
Burke wishes he had a different message to send to Leafs fans, a stronger message of hope.
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