It would have been so disappointing, of course, for it to end the way that it was looking like it was going to. But I mean, this is a funny game. Funny, funny game.
If this team really has what it takes to be a contender, now’s the time to prove it
Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe on the team’s improbable comeback to stay alive in their series against Columbus and force a deciding game tonight at Scotiabank Arena.
Often, we paint hockey in terms of what you deserve. How hard you work, how well, how much heart and brains and teamwork you put into it. It’s one way hockey is sold as more than a Canadian game; it’s a crucible. From there, it’s a short trip to becoming myth. Through 55 minutes in Game 4 of their best-of-five play-in series with the Columbus Blue Jackets, the Toronto Maple Leafs might have deserved better. They had a few more shots on goal. The expected goals, which weigh where the shots come from, favoured the Blue Jackets by quite a bit. Toronto, somehow, had more shots from the truly dangerous areas. Columbus led 3-0.
“I was thinking about some of the great efforts that we’ve had here in the last numbers of days, that we might not be rewarded for it, and I felt bad for that because I think we have had some individuals that have been really, really great through all of this,” said Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe after Toronto’s wild, season-saving 4-3 comeback win in overtime. “And it turns. You get a bounce, and it comes, and all of sudden you are getting rewarded. And you get new life.
“It would have been so disappointing, of course, for it to end the way that it was looking like it was going to. But I mean, this is a funny game. Funny, funny game. And I think there’s been times in this series where we haven’t been rewarded perhaps as we should have, and we had a little bit of good fortune today, as a result of some of our resilience.”
Indeed, then came the defining four minutes of this edition of the Leafs: three goals with the goalie on the bench, which was followed by an eventual win in overtime. It changed everything; it kept this strange season alive. Never mind that those were the only shots on goal that Toronto managed in the final 10 minutes of regulation, and that it took a sixon-five situation with Auston Matthews, John Tavares, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, Morgan Rielly and Zach Hyman to do it.
“With the firepower we have with these guys, the way they can put the puck in the net, we’re never out of it,” said Jason Spezza late Friday night. “And there’s a great sense of belief in our group, and we stuck with it the whole way and got some big goals by some big players.”
In some ways, that’s been the blessing and the curse of this team, and it helps explain a lot about how they got here. If you want to zoom out, both teams have shut out the other guys, and both teams have blown three-goal leads and lost in overtime. For the series, the Leafs have 52.5 per cent of the shot attempts at five-on-five, 52.8 of the shots and nearly 56 per cent of the expected goals, even if you account for the time they have trailed in Games 1 and 4.
That’s good hockey. The wild and crazy analytics Leafs do some things differently than most, sure. But it’s all based on doing what they have done, in the big picture: put yourself on the right side of the percentages, and control what you can from that.
But they also keep making some of the same mistakes they have been making since Keefe took over in November, and go long periods where they look disconnected from each other, even flat. Some teams don’t hesitate no matter the pressure, and just know what to do; that’s how champions are made. The Leafs weren’t that, for 55 minutes.
Then they attacked, and Matthews made the right passes to both Tavares and Hyman instead of trying to be a hero, and then finished it off. That was the kind of ferocious poise you need.
So what do they deserve? Keefe was asked what he thinks that means. He talked about how even when their team game or structure wasn’t what he wanted, they had worked, and some individuals hadn’t been rewarded for monster performances. And then he allowed, essentially, that’s hockey.
“Just the effort and the commitment that we’re seeing from some guys that I think are at a higher level than what we’ve seen from them before, and that’s what we’ve been asking for,” said Keefe Saturday. “Those are the types of things that I’m saying that we deserve. But that’s playoffs, right? I mean, on the other side, they have many players that they’d feel the same way, and they feel the same way about their team. It’s such a fine line between winning and losing, and that’s just the way that goes.
“We’ve seen really good progress in the areas that we’ve wanted to improve upon, from the beginning of camp. I feel like that’s given us a chance to win games. And we’ll bring as much of that as we can here to this final game, and look to bring the whole thing together.”
It doesn’t seem like the highest bar, but it’s the reality of a wildly talented team that is still developing the right habits, and a mindset that would mean they push long before it takes a miracle to save their year. In Game 4, at a point when they didn’t look like the better team, the Leafs summoned a series of miracles. It was, despite the elation, a dangerous way to live.
Sunday night the Leafs and Blue Jackets will play Game 5, and at the end of it one of them will be done. And after a season in which Toronto’s talent wasn’t enough to avoid having to play this game, in which they made the same mistakes over and over again, and in which they saved themselves, what do the Toronto Maple Leafs deserve?
It’s hard to say, really. All you can say is they’re going to get it, either way.