Leafs’ mantra for Game 6: avoid sin bin
Avoid the penalty box and, in turn, avoid what happened in the third period of Game 5 Saturday night in Boston.
That’s the opinion of Maple Leafs coach Mike Babcock, who watched helplessly as the Leafs beat a path to the box during the second period of what became, eventually, a 4-3 Leafs victory over the Boston Bruins.
The sins of the Leafs — whether deserved to be ruled as such by referees Francis Charron and Brad Watson — upset the flow for those not tasked with killing penalties, and the troubles bled into the third period, when the Leafs were outshot 20-5 and hung on for their hockey lives before prevailing.
On Sunday afternoon at the Air Canada Centre after the Leafs met for a team meeting but did not practise, Babcock used an analogy that would make sense to thousands of Canadians across the country.
“I don’t know if you’ve ever been out in a snowstorm or been out Ski-Dooing and if your SkiDoo runs out of gas, you have to sit there and wait for someone to bring you gas,” Babcock said, drawing some laughs. “You just sit there, but you’re not allowed to walk around because you might stay warm if you do that. “You’re not involved in the game. So what you have done is you take your team out of it and get no rhythm and now you get on your heels. So we have to do a better job of staying out of the box (in Game 6 on Monday night).” The Leafs were penalized once in the final 20 minutes, and that was early, when defenceman Travis Dermott was whistled for holding at 3:10. They had to deal with four Bruins power plays in the second period, including a lengthy five-on-three, meaning players such as Ron Hainsey, Nikita Zaitsev, Connor Brown and Zach Hyman were busy as others languished.
The Bruins carried their momentum into the third period, spending the majority of five-onfive play in the offensive zone. As Nazem Kadri said afterward, sometimes in road games in the playoffs the goal simply is to survive, and that’s what the Leafs did.
For the Leafs, the final 20 minutes were a lesson that can be applied on Monday night at the ACC in yet another elimination game for Toronto.