Will Maple Leafs’ core stay together? Matthews, Nylander, Marner, Tavares talk uncertainty

TORONTO — Auston Matthews understands this Maple Leafs’ team’s core and their playoff failures as good, if not better, than any other player. The team’s rebuild received the jumpstart it needed when the Leafs drafted Matthews No. 1 in 2016. But after losing in five games to the upstart Florida Panthers in the second round of the playoffs, change beckons top-to-bottom for this Leafs team. With just one playoff series win to this core’s credit since 2016 when Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander began playing together and then when John Tavares signed as a free agent in 2018, the…