Gritty Leafs force seventh game
Toronto takes Bruins to the limit, proves it’s no pushover
Every season waits. It waits for the end because the end always comes — and for almost every playoff team it ends with grudging handshakes, glassy stares, the pain that creeps back through your body when the adrenalin is gone.
Some games wait, too. Game 6 of the first-round series between the Boston Bruins and the Toronto Maple Leafs was like that — it started slow and then accelerated like a stone rolling downhill one way, up the canyon wall and then downhill the other. Through two periods there was no score and the tension built, a spring, wound up play by play.
And then in the third, with their season waiting for them for a second straight game, the Leafs were the better team when they had no other palatable choice. They were better than the former Stanley Cup champs, full stop. They earned their bounces and James Reimer, brilliant again with 30 saves, earned every one.
So, after a 2-1 win at the Air Canada Centre, the Leafs and Bruins will play Game 7 Monday night in Boston.
Who expected this? As in Toronto’s Game 5 win, less than two minutes into the third the Leafs got loose on the rush. This time it was Dion Phaneuf who found Nazem Kadri; Kadri wheeled into the slot and his wrist shot was deflected by the captain, who had thundered to the net. Phaneuf took a huge amount of heat for his mistake that led to the overtime goal by David Krejci in Game 4; this time his stone face cracked into a huge primal happy howl.
And unlike Game 5, the Leafs didn’t stop skating, weren’t paralyzed. They kept attacking and midway through the period a Cody Franson shot bounced around in front as James van Riemsdyk occupied several Bruins at once and Phil Kessel popped home the rebound — 2-0 Leafs, just like Game 5.
The fans chanted “Thank you, Seguin!” and though Milan Lucic made it 2-1 with 25.5 seconds left, the lead held and Kessel had his second game-winning goal of the series. For the second straight game, the Leafs made their season wait.
This is the same core of Bruins that won three Game 7s on the way to the Stanley Cup two years ago, but it’s also the same core of Bruins — and the same goalie — who blew a 3-0 lead in the series and a 3-0 lead in Game 7 to Philadelphia the year before. Experience, in hockey, can work both ways.
Toronto did it without centre Tyler Bozak, who was not announced as a scratch minutes before the game, but was then listed as out with an undisclosed injury when the official lineups were released. He barely touched the puck in the pre-game warmup, and seemed to be favouring his right arm. He played 21:27 in Game 5, the most of any Leafs forward.
It was a much more cautious start — no chariot racing, no odd-man rushes. The Bruins pinned the Leafs in their own zone at the very beginning, and once or twice after, in the same way they did in Game 5’s forearm-to-the-throat third period. But Toronto managed to get out and inhale again.
It was similar, but there were differences, too. Game 5 was an elimination game and the Leafs played the first 42 minutes without trepidation. The Bruins played those 42 minutes without urgency, either. This time, it felt like for the first time in the series, both teams were playing like there was something to lose. Perhaps 2010 is in Boston’s head, after all.
But the chances came. In the second period, Bruins defenceman Johnny Boychuk hit a post — he had previously hit the crossbar in the third period of Game 5 — and in the midst of a series of chances, Patrice Bergeron went to wrap the puck around the net and appeared to have room, but Reimer dove across his crease like a man diving on a grenade.
In Game 5, the game was scoreless when Reimer kicked out a pad to rob Bergeron; it happened again. The scoresheet stayed clean.
Then the game began to find a rhythm and the pace accelerated. Tuukka Rask got Kessel with a glove save; van Riemsdyk missed a puck on the doorstep. Seguin threw a wrist shot on the rush at one end and Kessel did it at the other. They went into the third even, tight, wound like springs. Some games wait. The Leafs answered.
And so, Game 7. This is the truly undiscovered country, now — when Brad Marchand said before Game 5 that he thought Toronto was outplaying the Bruins since Game 1, he wasn’t entirely wrong.
One numb-frozen nervous game to start this series and since then the Toronto Maple Leafs have belonged here, deserved this, come back and pulled the Bruins onto the brink with them. Game 7. The Garden.
Every season waits.