Reminder to Leaf Nation — it’s been worse
“The contest was as nasty as it was one-sided.”
“Maple Leafs learned a few lessons the hard way … you can’t take penalties and hope to survive the potent Bruin power play.”
“You can’t chase the Bruins out of the rink because they have a way of inflicting the most damage while picking up fewer penalties in such a confrontation.”
No, these aren’t descriptions of the 5-1 hammering Boston laid on Toronto in Beantown in the launch of their first-round playoff wrangle.
A dip into the Toronto Star archives turns up coverage by the late hockey beat writer Red Burnett of the opening game in the 1969 post-season clash between these two teams. And that abomination really was the worst playoff game the Leafs have ever gagged up: a 10-0 wipeout by the Bruins. In my estimation, at least as traumatizing as the epic meltdown Toronto suffered in Game 7 five years at the TD Garden — the chaos of a 4-1 third period lead turning into an elimination 5-4 overtime loss.
Let’s just take a brief stroll down memory lane. That was the game, at the beginning of the Big Bad Bruins era, where Pat Quinn infamously heaved a broad shoulder into Bobby Orr, barrelling out of the Boston zone with his head down. Knocked No. 4 out cold, which very nearly triggered a riot. Players swung sticks at each other and Leafs swung sticks at fans at the stands. Quinn was pelted by garbage in the penalty box. The team required a police escort to get to their bus afterwards.
Flatted 7-0 in Game 2, en route to a Boston sweep.
All of which is to say that what transpired on Thursday evening, the utterly disorganized flop of a performance by Toronto, doesn’t hold a candle to what’s come before when these clubs square off in The Second Season.
Also, to remind keening Leaf Nation that it was just one game, one loss, however demoralizing and jaw-dropping, the youthful and ultra talented — fast, skilled, resilient — Tsquad apparently replaced by doppelgangers, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, just about run out of the rink.
Man, who were those guys? Out-shot-attempted 54-30 at five-on-five, doubled up in scoring chances, the Leafs penalty kill dismantled — Boston 3-for-6 with the man advantage, Toronto 0-for-3.
The Auston Matthews line a rumour.
Morgan Rielly and Ron Hainsey a black hole on the PK blue line and overused.
Tomas Plekanec, obtained at the trade deadline for just this fourth unit playoff purpose, clueless.
Freddie Andersen awkward between the pipes, though he’s least to blame for the outcome.
Nazem Kadri losing his marbles. (Though I will suggest the charging head-hit he put on Tommy Wingels — who’d just delivered an elbow to Mitch Marner’s noggin — was not as egregious as portrayed, albeit resulting in a major and misconduct turfing and threegame suspension. At least Kadri had a pulse, some lead in his pencil, in coming to the defence of a teammate.)
Mike Babcock out-coached by Bruce Cassidy.
The best players were nowhere near the best players. And Leo Komarov enduring his own #MeToo moment, recipient of an unwanted smooch on the cheek by the endlessly cheeky Brad Marchand.
“He keeps trying to get close to me,” Marchand said postgame, laying on the wry. “I don’t know if he has a thing for me or what.: Pause. “He’s cute.”
Komarov, in the visitors’ dressing room: “I don’t know what happened there. I think he should be fined.”
Komarov, following Friday morning’s practice, asked if he’d ever been kissed by a hockey player before: “Yeah. Actually he kissed me earlier this season.” On the lips. Marchand is messing with his head.
Irresistible, apparently, is Uncle Leo. Certainly, apparently, to Babcock, who deployed Komarov for 16 minutes of ice-time, more than Matthews or Marner, though of course Komarov has PK duty and the Leafs were short- handed for nine minutes in the disastrous third period alone.
The lopsided effort sucked all the merry-merry air out of this city, as the Blue and White horde trudged away from Maple Leaf Square on a drizzly night, desperate for reassurance that it had all been a dreadful anomaly.
Which is true, surely. A split in Boston, against a team of playoff-wizened veterans, boasting what is arguably the top forward line in the NHL, was always the objective. So, that hasn’t changed, with Game 2 on tap Saturday. And the buoyant Leafs have a fine bounceback record this year from pathetic performances — five wins on the heels of losses by three goals.
“We have to match their intensity right off the bat,” Andersen vowed Friday.
“This is definitely a heavy team and a fast team as well.” The Bruins, he meant. “So we’ve got to really been on our game to slow them down and make sure we don’t get run around too much.”
A physical team, as always, and the Leafs aren’t, with a handful of exceptions.
A different looking team, for Game 2, as per the line combinations at Friday’s practice, with Komarov — oy — promoted to the Matthews troika and impressive rookie Andreas Johnsson drawing in for Kadri. But who knows what thoughts are churning in Babcock’s brain?
Except that a stiff kick in the pants was no bad thing.
“Number one, it’s probably good for us,” he said Friday. “If you played like we did last night, you deserve a little adversity.”
We’ve been a bit spoiled here in the centre of the universe. Raptors have won their conference, Blue Jays better out of the gate that most had expected, Toronto FC and the Argonauts both coming off championship seasons.
But this is still first and foremost, at heart, a hockey town.
Hearts that shouldn’t be broken after one mess of a game.