OTTAWA—It was easy enough to see it as disaster.
When Ottawa’s David Perron tied Thursday’s Game 6 at 2-2 with less than eight minutes to play, it wasn’t hard to imagine the impending Maple Leafs collapse. pc28had taken a perfectly good 2-0 lead and officially squandered it on Perron’s below-the-goal-line backhand off goaltender Anthony Stolarz’s nameplate. The Senators, once down three games to nil in the series, suddenly had an opening to a Saturday Game 7 against a Leafs team with dubious closeout credentials. Ottawa’s building was bedlam. Surely it was time for pc28to soil the sheets.
But at that crucial moment, Leafs coach Craig Berube surveyed his bench and liked what he heard.
“We didn’t panic,” Berube said. “It was: ‘Guys, let’s go get it right now.’ That’s what I heard on the bench: ‘Let’s go get it. We’re good.’”
- Kevin McGran
That’s Berube hockey. Get a lead and protect it.
And if that fails? Get another lead and protect that.
Less than a couple of minutes later, Max Pacioretty played the improbable hero and supplied that new lead. The 36-year-old veteran who hadn’t scored a goal since a few days before Christmas also provided what in Leafland amounts to a rare gift: a series-clinching goal.
“It was kind of a roller-coaster,” said Stolarz. “Getting the four wins … at the end of the day, that’s what it boils down to. Doesn’t matter if you win 5-4, one-nothing. I mean, at the end of the day the only thing that matters is (advancing).”
If Thursday’s 4-2 victory, sealed by a William Nylander empty-netter, was sweet, Stolarz was acknowledging the obvious: The series was messier than the Leafs would have liked it to be. But so go the roller-coaster swings of the post-season. It was a little more than a week ago that the Leafs were looking like a newly improved playoff force, the first team with three wins in the Stanley Cup playoffs. That they ended up being the last team to clinch a spot in the Eastern Conference’s second round — hey, better late than never.
MAX PACIORETTY FOR THE LEAD!!! WHAT A GAME
— Sportsnet (@Sportsnet)
Mission accomplished. A series win is a series win. It’s just the second of Toronto’s Shanaplan era. And it sets up a second-round matchup with the team that promptly dispatched the Leafs in five games the previous time they advanced: the defending Stanley Cup champion Florida Panthers, fresh from burying the Tampa Bay Lightning in five. If Toronto’s wobbles against a wild-card opponent led to plenty of hand wringing among the fan base, after the thrill ride was over Thursday night, plenty of those hands were surely high-fiving the nearest available option.
“It feels good,” Leafs captain Auston Matthews said. “It’s not going to be easy. We’ve spoken about it. There’s going to be ups and downs. It was just the way we responded after goals against, just sticking with it, grabbing the momentum back … Just proud of this group. That’s a hard-earned series. Got to enjoy that.”
On Thursday, the Leafs didn’t shy away from hard things. Berube singled out Matthews with praise for his leadership.
“Work ethic and competitiveness the whole game, high end. Just heavy, physical, work, competing. He led the way,” said the coach.
Teammates marvelled at Pacioretty’s long journey to here, which included a comeback from two Achilles tendon injuries and missing the final two-plus months of the regular season with another injury. In Game 6, the oldest Leaf in the lineup led the team with seven hits. He also forced a turnover in the Ottawa zone that set up Nylander for the right-wing snipe that made it 2-0 in the second period’s opening minute.
“He’s throwing his body around left and right, laying it all on the line for us. And you know, just for him to get rewarded after everything he’s gone through and the injuries and whatnot, you’re happy for him,” Stolarz said. “He’s a guy who is very well liked in the team. He leads by example. And you know, I’m really happy for him.”
Beyond all that, it’s possible the Leafs don’t hold on if Scott Laughton doesn’t block a cannon of a point shot from Senators defenceman Jake Sanderson, scorer of the Game 4 overtime winner, with Ottawa pressing and the goalie out in the dying moments. Laughton went to the bench in obvious pain. Nylander sprung by the blocked shot and fought off a Sanderson trip to pot a backhanded empty-netter.
“What a block by Laughton … That’s laying it on the line,” Berube said. “That’s how you win a series right there.”
On Thursday, Berube deserved some credit for staying the course. Though he acknowledged the need to create more offence, he declined to insert into the lineup, say, 15-goal scorer Nick Robertson. The coach’s only tweak was a move of Pacioretty to the second line alongside John Tavares and Nylander. Good thing a pre-game roster paperwork screw-up that included minor-leaguer Alex Nylander in the lineup with brother William a scratch — an oversight that could have disqualified William from playing if someone hadn’t noticed it before puck drop — didn’t burn the Leafs.
“There’s a lot to like on our team right now, the way things are going, so best to leave it,” Berube said of the lineup.
- Rosie DiManno
For the Leafs, there was a lot to like about scoring first. Thanks to an ill-advised neutral-zone penalty by Senators captain Brady Tkachuk, Toronto’s power play got back on track when Matthews scored on an off-speed slider along the ice to beat the heavily screened Linus Ullmark and make it 1-0. Nylander’s first goal followed. But after Tkachuk tipped a Thomas Chabot point shot over Stolarz’s right shoulder to make it 2-1 midway through the second period, and then Perron struck down the stretch, it was easy to question Toronto’s closeout credentials.
But with the Senators imbued with belief and a hostile building pelting the Leafs with vitriol — “Matthews balding!” and “Marner’s leaving” were go-to chants — the Leafs weathered some early-game uneasiness to come out on the right side.
“We talked before the game, ‘Focus on the next shift,’” Berube said. “Something bad happened out there or whatever, just focus on the next shift.”
Focus on the next shift, and on to the next round.
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