LEAFS ‘BELIEVE WE CAN GET IT DONE’ AFTER GAME 5 WIN
Toronto’s Game 6 lineup to feature same players who kept season alive in Boston
Seeing the Toronto Maple Leafs walk into the Air Canada Centre on a sunny Sunday with no scheduled practice usually means locker cleanout. This assemblage, however, was a team meeting to prep for Game 6, their belief strengthened by a huge 4-3 win in Boston on Saturday night to stave off elimination in their best-of seven, firstround NHL playoff series. Coming all the way back from a 3-1 series hole remains a formidable feat not done by a Leafs team in 76 years. But here’s betting the in-house camera finds the 1942 Stanley Cup banner in the rafters at some point on Monday night. Coach Mike Babcock had to feel relief at such a huge road win, his faith rewarded in the lineup he relied on most of the year getting the required goals, penalty killing, netminding and surviving a late Boston rally that raised the spectre of the 2013 playoff exit. “You don’t have to believe this if you don’t want to, but at no time last night did I feel we were going to lose,” he said. “Why? Some nights you’re playing so poorly (you think) you’re never going to win. Last night wasn’t one. These are opportunities — and you want to be known as one of the guys who gets it done this time of year. To me that’s the measure of your career. You want to be in the big moment. You have to relax and execute, but you have to believe, and I think our group does.” No softies eluded goalie Frederik Andersen. Nazem Kadri came back from suspension and played a great game. Ron Hainsey stayed out three full minutes while killing penalties. And despite temptation to get rugged Leo Komarov in the lineup from a nagging knee injury, blind loyalty gave way to lucidity and Andreas Johnsson stayed in. Komarov told the media Saturday morning he was ready to go.
“What was sent to you and what was told to me was a little bit different,” Babcock insisted. “When he talked to our (medical) guys, he was 85 per cent and that doesn’t cut it at playoff time.”
As for other potential roster moves, such as bringing Matt Martin or Josh Leivo out of mothballs, Babcock said “none were considered.”
Of Monday’s plan he said “we’ll have the same people, I’m not sure the same lineup. Because we have last change at home, it might make that different.” For survivors of the Game 7 meltdown in Boston in 2013 — Jake Gardiner, Kadri, James van Riemsdyk and Tyler Bozak, saving their season instead of turning a 4-1 margin into an overtime loss was soul cleansing.
“We had a lead, similar to five years ago,” Gardiner said, beating reporters to the 2013 analogy. “Glad we got over that curse so that’s out of our minds. It was intense, especially when they made it 4-3. We just tried to relax, not take our foot off the gas. You’re going to win in all sorts of fashion in the playoffs and that being one of them was nice.
“We know they’ll be coming hard (Monday), but it’s our building, it will be loud and we’ll be ready.”
Alternate captain Morgan Rielly shares the boss’s enthusiasm about how much the Leafs have grown in the cauldron of this series.
“Last night when we were going back and forth to the penalty box and their crowd was pretty loud, I was trying to talk to the ref and we couldn’t really hear each other. That’s a pretty cool atmosphere and I wouldn’t expect much difference (Monday). “Going into Game 5, we had belief in ourselves and within the group. When you go out and play a good game, that just adds to it, makes you that much more excited for Game 6 and adds to the belief, the comfort and the confidence. We feel good moving forward about what’s left to be done. We believe we can get it done.”