Exciting squad survives Gardiner own goal plus Andersen’s injury to end drought
The Dane in whiplash crunch, head almost knocked off his shoulders.
Prone in his crease, eerily still on the ice.
Skating slowly and gingerly off the ice, disappearing down the tunnel into concussion protocol limbo.
And there too the fate of the Maple Leafs seemed to hang, in the penultimate game of the season: limbo. With a perfect storm of woe brewing. Except for this: A journeyman backup goalie in Curtis McElhinney who finished what the head-banged Frederik Andersen started, stoning none other than Sidney Crosby with some 40 seconds left to play in regulation time.
And this: An ex-Penguin, rough gem in the swap for Phil Kessel, whose first NHL goal brought the home side back 3-3 square on the scoreboard, with 51⁄
2 minutes left in the third period.
And this: Toronto kid who grew up crazy for the Leafs, the Irish redhead in the rookie cadre, sending the Air Canada Centre crowd into delirium, score rightside-up again, 4-3, under three minutes left on the clock.
And this: Auston Matthews, the capital-R rookie, who started it all in a flash of goals 179 days ago, pouncing on a puck for an empty-netter — No. 40 on the season and the 5-3 final flourish. Only a couple — including Crosby — have racked up more this year.
And this: For all their glittery freshman talent, staked to leads, sent on their way in a wild roller-coaster of a hockey game, by a pair of veterans who are survivors of the Collapse on Causeway Street four years ago.
That was the last playoff sniff the Leafs had and the stench of it has lingered. Yet here they are now: Won and done. Against the defending Stanley Cup champions, no less. Well, the Penguins Lite anyway.
For the first time since 2013 — only second time since 2006 — the Maple Leafs are playoff-bound. Tampa can’t catch ’em. Islanders can’t catch ’em. It’s a moot pursuit as the season rounds into its final 24 hours of the campaign.
The permutations remain unresolved. Could be Toronto opens the first round against Washington on Thursday. Could be Toronto opens the first round against Ottawa on . . . hell knows.
Questions to be settled by Sunday night, after the Leafs dust off the regulation season with Columbus in town.
Questions more complex than those likely posed to Andersen after he left the ice, in seeming fragility, following the entirely avoidable slam laid on him early in the second frame by Tom Sestito, a skate-by assault via shoulder and hip against a netminder with a known concussion history and just two weeks removed from another jaw-rattler.
Where are you? What day is this? How many fingers?
What is the mathematical equation for Toronto making the playoffs?
Even clear-minded, that might have been a stumper, so quickly was the ground shifting beneath the Leafs. And in the moment, in the sudden hush of the Air Canada Centre — those long seconds before Andersen stirred out of what appeared to be unconsciousness, struggled to his knees, finally staggered to his feet – it didn’t quite matter so much.
In the executive suite high above the ice, team president Brendan Shanahan rose and spun away in apprehension. Could this really be happening?
Because the Leafs, without Andersen, and still clinch-less in Toronto, with the Lightning and the Islanders teed up for a Game 82 overtake blitz, no Dane between the pipes in what loomed as the must- win game . . . it just all seemed to be falling apart in the very short strokes of the season.
But it didn’t all fall to ruin, which is what Leafs Nation has come to expect — that anything which can go wrong will go wrong.
Except these Leafs aren’t those Leafs, the break-your-heart Leafs.
These Leafs, on this night, found a way to recover even after Jake Gardiner, in what could have been the supremo goat moment of the season, managed to knock in — carom off his toe — the goal that put Pittsburgh up 3-2, at 6.51 of the third, puck skittering past a startled McElhinney, just as he was getting his bearings coming in cold off the bench.
“He’s been the heart and soul of this team, playing the amount of game he has so far,” McElhinney said of Andersen, who made his 66th start. “He’s been a leader. I don’t think you ever want to see him get hurt in a situation like that. But at the same point, as far as backup goalies go, you dream about it. It was a great opportunity.’’
On robbing Crosby: “I could see out of the corner of my eye. I wasn’t quite aware of who it was in particular.’’ Probably for the best, not knowing. Not known, as well — as this is now a critical issue — is the state of Andersen’s noodle, but he’ll have a bunch of days off to recover, assuming McElhinney gets the start Sunday. Yet coach Mike Babcock indicated after the game that, pending further medical notice Sunday, he’d hope to see the Dane between the posts for Game No. 82.
On a night of heroics, the energy cranked way up, maybe nobody was as fired up as James van Riemsdyk, even before he put Toronto on the board with a deft piece of hand-eye coordination at the blue line, whacking the puck out of the air and onto his stick to beat Marc-Andre Fleury.
That erased the smirky-smile lead that Kessel had provided Pittsburgh, JVR responding a mere 30 seconds later, his co-veteran Tyler Bozak making it 2-1 early in the second.
But where the older hands led, just as it seemed the Leafs were about to fly off the playoff rails, the boy band later picked up the slack.
Kapanen with his woo-hoo tying goal. What was that like, first NHL goal and all? “Can’t really tell you. I blacked out there. But can’t be a better time to score than tied up against your old club, feels pretty good.” Connor Brown, who somehow got the puck through a cluster of bodies with the game-winner: “That’s a night I’m sure I’ll remember for a long time.”
Matthews, so cool and calm afterwards, with his 40th in the bag, as if he does this every year, as if this wasn’t his first year: “This is why you play, to play in meaningful games like this. So it’s a lot of fun.” What fun. At the end of it, they gathered at centre ice and raised their sticks to salute the crowd.
Right back at ya.