The fact he was on with 7 minutes to go doesn’t change anything, his legs were probably the freshest on the team and he could have very well put in a good energy shift which can really help our momentum heading into the final minutes.

This is a rationalization you're making up in order to defend a dumb decision by a coach.

In fact, if you look at 4 of Boston’s goal scorers in game 7, they all played under 12 minutes.

Boston went ahead early on in the game. There was no need for them to stray away from the plan. Rolling 4 lines is good when the game is tied, the team is clicking and everyone is fine. Rolling 4 lines when you're down 2+ goals in the third period is asinine. The Mackinnon example was to show that it's good to do when you're desperate.

I can agree Babs overplayed Freddy in the regular season

If you're expecting a deep playoff run, you cannot play your goaltender 65+ games in the regular season. Andersen has been on pace 66 every year he's been here. If it were not for his injury last season, he'd have a 70+ game season. Here's a list of goalies that have won Cups for their teams after playing 65 games in the regular season - this is going back to 1917: Martin Brodeur, Jonathan Quick.

That's your list.

Also again back to diminishing returns that nobody on this sub seems to understand. These are real human beings (except Mcdavid) they do not have unlimited energy, especially after an 82 game season.

Nobody is saying we should be playing Matthews 24 minutes on average. If the Leafs are leading 5-2 in the third period of Game 4, cool, I'm fine with Matthews only getting 18 minutes. I'm not fine with that if it's 3-1 in a Game 7 and the Leafs are behind. You can play players extended minutes in isolated scenarios. Mike Babcock himself does not understand this. This is the Stanley Cup playoffs, there's gonna be a few games where you need your forwards to put in 22+ minutes. Your goalie will be playing 20+ games straight without a break. The rules change.

Secondly, you ignored the part where Babcock has for three consecutive seasons been guilty of running his defencemen into the ground. Here's Morgan Rielly's 5 highest TOI games this year:

• Game 50 vs Detroit - 28:16 - Completely unimportant game that meant nothing
• Game 3 vs Boston Round 1 - 27:58 - Tight game of a playoff series. Understandable and acceptable.
• Game 75 vs Rangers - 27:18 - Another meaningless game late in the regular season.
• Game 48 vs Arizona - 27:17 - Are you seeing a pattern yet?
• Game 33 vs Florida - 27:04 - Leafs were far ahead of Panthers in the standings at this point in the year.

So 4 of the 5 games that Babcock decided to ride Rielly, were completely and utterly meaningless games.

If you don’t think Babcock learns from his mistakes you are quite possibly delusional.

Name a single coaching issue Mike Babcock has fixed in 3 years with Toronto.

• Does he still overrate the offensive impact of defensive specialists? Yes, Connor Brown was pigeonholed into the top line multiple times last year as well as the powerplay. He did this the year before with Leo Komarov.
• Does he still overrate Real Gud Pros? Enter the Patrick Marleau Experience.
• Does he still not know how to manage minutes? Ron Hainsey for the second year in a row. Useful player, just not useful for 22+ minutes.
• Did he get outcoached by Cassidy for the second year in a row? Yes.
• Did he have an extended stretch in the middle of the season where the team looked awful? Yes. Last year it was November to January. This year it was the entire second half of the season, the Leafs were sub .500 in the last 41 games of the year.