Young Leafs make you really want to believe
It was two years ago in New York and Brenden Morrow, a hockey lifer towards the end of that life, was talking about the Tampa Bay Lightning. Tampa was a game short of the Stanley Cup final.
“It’s such an easy team to fall in love with,” Morrow said.
“They’re young, they’re exciting, they play a style of game that’s entertaining. It’s pretty easy for fans to get behind them.”
That came to mind when thinking about this version of the Toronto Maple Leafs, one game short of the end of a season.
A win in Game 6 against the Washington Capitals, and the series goes to Game 7. A loss, and it’s done.
It would be a shame if this ends short of seven games, but that playoff mortality is a reminder: It has been, from beginning to end, one hell of a year.
“Just like you, I saw group of guys come to camp,” said head coach Mike Babcock, one day after a 2-1 loss to Washington in Game 5.
“Obviously we’ve come a long, long way. As you raise your belief in them, you raise your expectations. You want more. That’s just human nature, you always want a little bit more. I don’t think that’s a bad thing.”
That’s what has happened, this season and in the last two weeks. When the Leafs drew Washington, the league’s best team, a lot of people thought well, nice season. Lessons learned, young players, their style of play, all those rookies. Fun year.
Now that the Leafs have played five one-goal games, the idea has changed. They can win this, sure. But also, instead of an execution, it’s been an extension of a team that has been one of the most fun things in hockey all season. A hockey city — one people across the country have, in a familiar act of near-national unity, have been making justifiable fun of for so long — has been reawakened.
“It’s been enjoyable to be that underdog, and you see the fan support, there’s nothing quite like it in the sport,” veteran winger Matt Martin says.
“Maple Leaf Square for Game 1 of the first round is just packed. It’s been a lot of fun to be a part of. Not only has it been fun to play along with these guys and kind of grow as a team, but to see this market and how excited they are for the future, that’s great. But that being said, we’re focused on the present, and we believe . . . we have an opportunity to move on to the second round.
“It’s been a lot of fun just watching guys grow. You look at a guy like Auston (Matthews) . . . it seems like, well, it didn’t take him long to figure out the regular season . . .”
“Just to see him start to . . . I don’t want to say dominate a playoff series, but every situation he’s been in, he seems to figure it out pretty quickly. You see how elite of a player he is.
“All our young guys are battling. And that’s important. Everyone talks about the young guys’ inexperience, but we’re finding ways to stay alive. Our backs are against the wall now, and I’m confident that we can come out tomorrow night and play a strong hockey game.”
They should feel that way. Martin called the Capitals “the best team in hockey,” and there has been so little to choose between Washington and this Leafs team through five games. In Game 5, the Capitals packed their own zone against Toronto’s speed, but facing a different style, the Leafs played even with them. You could argue that had Nazem Kadri not been penalized for a hit that was delivered on Alexander Ovechkin above the knee and resulted in no injury, the game might have flipped, since Washington scored on that power play. But in these games, you can flip one or two plays every game, and it changes.
But Lord, if you are a Leafs fan and have waited through the doomed drudgery of the years, this team has been worth waiting for.
“We could go on for a long time about the changes that have been made and what it takes to get from where we were to where we are now, but the most important thing is we’re here, we’re proud of where we’ve come, but we’re not satisfied,” defenceman Morgan Rielly says. “We have a long way to go before until we get to where we want to be, and this is just one step in the journey.”
The Canadian Press’s Jonas Siegel spotted Babcock walking out of the Verizon Center on Friday night, telling employees of the building, “See you in a couple days.” Of course he did. Babcock said, “They were being nice to me on the way out, saying have a good year. I said, ‘No, see you in a couple of days.’ In my mind and in my heart, that’s what I know is going to happen.”
That Tampa team found the shoals quickly enough after Morrow’s words — a loss in the final, injuries, a loss in the conference final, injuries, out of the playoffs. Babcock doesn’t know, but he believes. Maybe it’s worth believing in.