So how did we get here?
The Toronto Maple Leafs, an organization that only 14 months ago had, like an addict, come to grips with having reached rock bottom. They were firm in the admission that they were starting down the long road to respectability.
A new coach, a new general manager - it was accepted that the building process would be long and painful.
When head coach Ron Wilson said prior to last season, "We're not going to win the Stanley Cup this season, probably," it was a backhanded admission that the playoffs were not top of mind, so fans should be patient. It was the right tack to take, and Leafs Nation - with the promise of a properly conducted rebuilding program - was not at all upset.
In fact, we sensed an excitement from Leafs fans at watching it all unfold - even if there was some short-term pain.
So why did it all have to change? Who mixed up the old adage - under-promise and over-perform - and got it backward before the start of the 2009-10 season?
Under seemingly no pressure from outside forces, GM Brian Burke felt the need to kick this rebuild into hyper drive, trading away prime draft picks for Phil Kessel after spending the summer telling everyone that the playoffs were a realistic goal in Year 2 of this project.
Selling the highest priced tickets in the league is not even a minor pressure point for Burke and Wilson. You would think that Toronto should be atop the entire NHL on the list of cities where a patient, three- or four-year rebuild would not only be possible, but accepted.
But there was Burke this summer, his foot on the gas, taking this 12 Step program from Step 1 to Step 7 far too fast.
Five fruitless games into the season, those raised expectations are already haunting a team that simply did not improve enough over the summer to harbour any thoughts of making up the 12 points they missed the cut-off by last season.
All the Leafs had to do was admit what every sports organization in every sport knows: rebuilding programs take more than one season. "Be patient. We're doing this the right way here."
Now we're five games in, and the weight of expectation is already sculpting Wilson's lineup for Tuesday night's tilt against the Colorado Avalanche. He is putting two of his best forwards - Matt Stajan and Niklas Hagman - in the press box, and inserting two rookies in their place in Viktor Stalberg and Tyler Bozak.
Forcing a kid into his first NHL game under these circumstances, as Bozak will be, is not the right way to handle a top prospect. In fact, it is a textbook case of mishandling that prospect.
Tyler Bozak should be kept as far away from this team right now as possible.
"We have to shake things up," Wilson reasoned at the morning skate. "We've got Stalberg coming back (from injury) and we brought up Bozak. It can't always be like the movie, The Usual Suspects. It's easy to pick on the fourth-line guys, but we need more from everybody. Although (Stajan and Hagman) have scored some goals, their overall play hasn't been what we need it to be.
"It has to be significant changes. Sitting out guys who play on the fourth line and put in a really good effort makes no sense to me."
There is nothing wrong with sitting Hagman and Stajan. Those two should be leaders when and if this team comes around. They have to know now that they are accountable; perhaps more accountable than anyone else, as both are NHL veterans and should know what it takes.
But clearly what has put the Leafs in this dire position - where they can not possibly deliver on the expectations created by their own management - is the over-rating of their young players.
Luke Schenn is a good defenceman who somehow got pumped up into a future Norris Trophy candidate last season. In his sophomore year he looks 19 again, and if you witnessed Sean Avery school him for about 20 seconds behind the Leafs net on Sunday night it is clear Schenn has a loooong way to go before he is a dependable top four defenceman in the NHL.
Leafs management should have quietly been protecting Schenn from unrealistic expectations. Unless they too thought he was the next coming of Adam Foote.
The young free agents, Jonas Gustavsson, Bozak and Christian Hanson: history tells us that the team tends to have to carry a player through his first NHL season, not the other way around.
Somehow though, these players were pumped up into a group that was going to make the Leafs 12 points better this season.
Rather than preach some level of caution, "The Monster" Gustavsson was billed as an NHL goaltender right out of Sweden. In reality, guys like Miikka Kiprusoff, Tomas Vokoun, Niklas Backstrom and Kari Lehtonen all either took a few NHL seasons to find their legs here, or came over at a later age.
Now, the expectations weigh on this Leafs club like an anvil.
It's too bad, because it didn't have to happen this way.
