Pressure is on for the Leafs
The Air Canada Centre crowd wanted to go home celebrating a playoff spot. They had to settle for a pizza slice in a between-periods’ promotion.
For the second straight home game, a chance for the Maple Leafs to clinch their first playoff spot in four years was denied when the Tampa Bay Lightning refused to follow the script. The Bolts scored first, went back ahead in the second period and closed out the Leafs with goals by Michael Bournival and Brayden Point’s second of the game, not the two points the Leafs were counting on.
Now the Leafs have to face the daunting prospect that their playoff seed, if they can get a point or two against the Pittsburgh Penguins and Columbus Blue Jackets this weekend, could be the wildcard eighth and match them against the President’s Trophy winning Washington Capitals in the first round. With Ottawa clinching a spot by taking Boston to overtime, only the Leafs and the trailing Lightning and New York Islanders remain in contention and Toronto might have to back in.
Given how far the they’ve come from 30th place, the Leafs could probably live with one more day of drama, as long as there’s life for them next week. The pressure is still on the Bolts to repeat their feat tomorrow in Montreal or they’re done, which would open the last playoff portal for the Isles. New York slammed the Hurricanes on Thursday to also get within four of the Leafs and finish up with weekend games against the Devils and Senators.
Toronto could be given some slack for Tuesday’s loss to Washington that came after a three-game road trip and was on a back-to-back. But injury riddled Tampa gave them as much of a fight as if Steve Stamkos, Tyler Johnson and Ryan Callahan were in its lineup.
Despite the four goals, Frederik Andersen had made enough saves to hold Toronto in the game, including breakaways by Nikita Kucherov and Jonathan Drouin.
Auston Matthews, with parents Brian and Ema in from Arizona hoping to see the clinch, looked on in concern late in the first period when Tampa Bay’s Jake Dotchin stuck a knee out at the Lightning blue line and locked legs with the young Leaf star after he’d passed the puck to his left. Matthews slowly made his way to the bench taking deep breaths, with the entire ACC in a similar state. But he didn’t miss a shift.
The Leafs had struck out on three power-play chances before one of Roman Polak’s over zealous hits left them short-handed and put Point in business to give Tampa the lead. Andersen then had to make two dandy saves, one after his own giveaway before the Leafs finally got some rhythm on offence. It was Nazem Kadri stretching to tip a Matt Hunwick shot through Andrei Vasilevsky’s short side.
It was Kadri’s 32nd of the season and underlined his extraordinary season of growth under head coach Mike Babcock. However, Kucherov then caught the Leafs defence napping, weaving through Morgan Rielly and Polak and wristing his 39th past Andersen for a 2-1 lead. It could’ve been worse, but Andersen snared a Drouin backhand deke when he captured an airborne puck and broke in alone, Andersen careful to keep his glove on front of the goal line as he reached back to avoid losing the ensuing video review.
It was the second home game in a row that the Leafs’ rookie rock stars were suddenly silenced, Mitch Marner and William Nylander skunked along with Matthews after Marner had the only goal against the Caps.
Asked if he’d worked out all the various playoff permutations before the game in the event of a win, loss, overtime or shootout, Babcock nodded “I’m a smart guy”, but he’d have prefered foregoing another 48 hours of calculating possible tie breakers that will stretch into Games 81 and 82.
The Bolts insurance goal was tipped wide of Andersen, but came out the other side right to the light scoring Bournival. Before the game, Stamkos skated yet again in the morning, but didn’t feel comfortable testing his knee in a real game and likely won’t this weekend.
The Leafs also spent too much time worried about chippy play by the Isles after showing discipline much of their late-season run that was up to 8-1-1 prior to facing the Caps.