Wild ride ends up in a familiar spot
High of miracle win gone as history repeats itself with another early post-season exit
Well, that’s that. But. What was that? A best-of-five qualifying whirlwind that went its maximum distance, swung from despair to jubilation, hitting all the squawking notes in between, yet still ended the way it’s always ended for a franchise which last won a playoff series in 2004. And yeah-yeah, this wasn’t technically a playoff series, merely a pandemic mandated and mutilated qualifying round. Still, 16 years and counting since the Leafs last won a post-season confrontation.
Auston Matthews was six years old.
Out of the bubble and into the black of a gloomy summer for the Maple Leafs. Again. Sent packing Sunday 3-0 by Columbus.
A team, the Leafs, which is most decidedly not a work in progress, though that’s often cited as an alibi for things that go wrong, especially in the crunch.
The core of this group has been together for four years. That’s a whole lot of time to gel. Progress absolutely must be measured, at the very least, by taking one teeny step toward post-season success. They’ve certainly got all the sparkly baubles, all the money that could be thrown at emerging stars to keep them in situ, all the beckoning promise that lured a John Tavares back home to Toronto.
And coming a cropper anyway, against an outfit in the Blue Jackets that may have been neck-and-neck with the Leafs on the season record, but couldn’t hold a candle — by just about every metric — to their giddy talent. Yet somehow shadow eclipsed dazzle, homely punted flash.
Morgan Rielly tried to sum up the disappointment, but his downcast face spoke volumes: “It’s hard to put it all into words. It might take some time to digest. But it’s definitely a bad feeling, a bad taste.”
As bad as a year ago in Boston, he was asked.
“Whether that makes it worse or easier to deal with, I don’t know. but right now it certainly feels like it’s hard to live with.”
Perhaps the sugar high of a too-too-sweet — spectacular, wondrous — four-goal comeback OT win in Game 4 on Friday resulted in a metabolic crash Sunday. But they’d talked about that, warned themselves about it.
“We want to build off the win the other night, there’s no question about that,” Tavares had said earlier in the day. “But we have to know how hard it’s going to be. This one is always the toughest one to get.”
Coach Sheldon Keefe had addressing the maturing of his team as well, a team for which he only assumed responsibility last November.
“We’ve seen a lot of little moments inside of every game that show the urgency that’s required at this time of year,” he told reporters in a pre-game Zoom session. “More than enough guys have been in this situation before.”
Keefe pulled an unexpected zoomie as well by activating Andreas Johnsson off injury reserve and scratching rookie teenager Nick Robertson. Johnsson hadn’t played since Feb. 13 and underwent knee surgery. While the Swede had been practising with the Leafs as of late, one might well wonder how fit he was for the rigours of an elimination tilt.
The more significant injury quick heal was Zach Werenski, Columbus D-horse with partner Seth Jones. Werenski missed the final 10 minutes of regulation in Game 4 and all of overtime with what looked like a hand or wrist issue. Yet all it took was lobbed wrister at 6:29 of the first, looked harmless, to put Columbus on the board 1-0. Off a Leaf turnover on the boards, caught Freddie Andersen sliding to his right, wrong way when the shot appeared to deflect off Tyson Barrie.
Matthews had, just on the prior shift, jumped up and threw the middle, trying to go five-hole on Joonas Korpisalo, but the puck wouldn’t settle down and he was being hounded by Werenski anyway.
The Leafs avoided going two-down on a too-many-men penalty cock-up, on a William Nylander shift change, but the Columbus power play — a dreadful 0-for-12 at that point — couldn’t generate much of an offensive threat. Nylander was playing centre in the moment because Keefe leaned heavily on his cameo $34million line — Matthews, Tavares, Mitch Marner — with all the marbles on the line.
Back at even strength, Tavares hit the post at the other end and nail-biting Leaf fans were likely wondering if it was going to be that kind of a snakebit night again. The willies were reinforced when Andersen took a high-rising shot by Alexandre Texier right between the eyes, knocking the strap off his mask. No further damage, fortunately.
With the injured Jake Muzzin watching from the stands — masked up — the Jackets outshot Toronto 7-6 in the opening frame.
Given the bizarreness of this series — shutout, shutout, four-goal OT comeback, fourgoal OT comeback — it was anybody’s guess how the fates would fickle the bejeezus out of this sucker.
And then nothing happened for a long chunk of hockey except mutual frustration.
The nervy Columbus forecheck wasn’t quite as masterful in the second, but don’t try convincing Barrie of that. He absorbed three consecutive hits in the same corner and was slow getting up from the last one, skating off gingerly and not seen again. He was on the bench for a dangerous two-on-one by break that fortuitously didn’t even require a save by Andersen because the puck skipped off Pierre-Luc Dubois’ stick. But didn’t emerge from the locker room in the third.
An ugly and stupid crosscheck against Tavares by Werenski provided Toronto their first power-play opportunity. Nothin’ doin’ as Korpisalo withstood the barrage.
Sticks were flying left and right in a chaotic episode as the clock ticked down to intermission, but not before Toronto drew another penalty, tripping infraction by Travis Dermott, with 30 seconds left. Andersen faced only eight shots on the frame but at least three of them were of the hot-dang variety.
Columbus, predictably, could do nada with the man advantage that spilled over into the third.
Can’t say the Leafs failed to give it guts and gumption throughout. But they were weirdly abandoned by their finishing touch, even as they buzzed and threw everything they had at the net. Korpisalo had something to do with that, of course, and how effectively the Jackets blocked out Toronto’s forwards, repeatedly denying them the slot, forcing so many shots from the outside.
Keefe didn’t take the pedal off his big gun line. And why would he? Meanwhile, Columbus clung to their one-goal lead.
The Leafs increasingly tried lobbing the puck over the D and chasing to retrieve and cycle. That too, however, often played right into Columbus’ wheelhouse. Instead, with the Leafs changing, it was the Jackets who pounced on a fine mess. In the blink of an eye, rookie Liam Foudy somehow found himself eyeball-to-eyeball with Andersen and further somehow squeezed the puck between Andersen’s legs on a lousy angle at 11:40.
Not for the first time in this series, Andersen looked completely stunned. But of course he’s usually good for one bad goal a game.
It wouldn’t matter so much if the Leafs’ much-vaunted offence could pot a few when needed.
The Leafs didn’t sag, charged right back on a two-on-one, hard shot from Johnsson, but Korpisalo got his catcher up to snatch it.
With 2:36 left, Keefe pulled Andersen for the extra attacker. Maybe the gutsiest save of the night came courtesy of Marner, who thwarted Gustav Nyquist in front of the gaping goal.
Captain Nick Foligno, with 23 seconds left, made no mistake, 3-0.
On this evening, there would be no Manic Miracle on Bay Street.
The last hurrah for the Maple Leafs had been 48 hours earlier.
Just handshakes and déjà-blue.