Toronto set to head back to Beantown
Maple Leafs demand a series finale following 2- 1 victory over the ‘ Jekyll and Hyde’ Bruins
TORONTO — Every season waits. It waits for the end because the end always comes, and for almost every playoff team it ends with grudging handshakes, glassy stares, the pain that creeps back through your body when the adrenalin is gone.
Some games wait, too. Game 6 of the first- round series between the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs was like that — it started slow and then accelerated, winding the tension like a spring. No score through one; no score through two. At the start, when it was slow, it was like for the first time in the series both teams were playing like they had something to lose.
The difference is that when the game was there to win or lose, it was the Leafs who made their season wait, again. This is the same team that played Game 1 like they had never seen a playoff game before — many of them, of course, had not — but now it is a team that has come back from a 3- 1 deficit, and seems to have travelled miles. The Leafs are playing like they belong here, and Game 7 is Monday night in Boston.
“Obviously with the group that we have we had a lot of guys playing in their first game; there’s jitters,” said Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf after Toronto’s 2- 1 victory in Game 6 of their first- round playoff series. “I think there’s always jitters, no matter how many games you’ve played — you can ask some of their veteran guys over there — ( but) we’ve grown as a group, and we’re going to continue to grow. And that was another stepping stone for us.”
The mention of some of the veteran guys over there was probably not accidental. This is the same core of Bruins that won three Game 7s on the way to the Stanley Cup two years ago, but it’s also the same core of Bruins — and the same goalie, Tuukka Rask — who blew a 3- 0 lead in the series and a 3- 0 lead in Game 7 to Philadelphia in 2010. Experience, in hockey, can work both ways.
“As I said to our players after the game, we’ve been a Jekyll and Hyde hockey team all year and that’s what you’re seeing now,” said Bruins coach Claude Julien.
It was a cracked reflection of Toronto’s Game 5 victory. James Reimer made a jaw- dropping save on Patrice Bergeron in the second period, just as he did in Game 5. The Leafs broke open the tension first and grabbed a 2- 0 lead, just like Game 5. The Bruins made it interesting late, just like Game 5.
But last time the Leafs held on, just barely; this time they were better than the former champs, full stop. The first goal this time came on a rush that started with Phaneuf clipping the puck away from Milan Lucic and getting it to James van Riemsdyk, who found Nazem Kadri with a blind spinning pass at centre ice; Kadri said he was talking to his linemate, with whom he has barely played this season.
Kadri wheeled into the slot, and he saw Rask cheating to his blocker side, and he sent his wrist shot to where Phaneuf was, to give him a chance to deflect it. Phaneuf chopped the shaft of his stick on the puck, and the tie was broken. Toronto’s captain took a huge amount of heat for his mistake that led to the overtime goal by David Krejci in Game 4; this time his stone face cracked into a huge primal happy howl. Phaneuf practises deflections at the end of practice, and some guys rib him for it.
“I do, I swear,” Phaneuf said. “In practice, I stand there and tip ( the puck). I played there before, in junior and stuff, in front of the net, and earlier in my career sometimes on the power play. So I practise it.”
Midway through the third, Phil Kessel popped home a rebound to make it 2- 0 Leafs, and the fans chanted “Thank you Seguin!” Lucic scored with 25.5 seconds left, but it was too late.
The Bruins ended their season with a stretch of six games in nine days, and were said to suffer from fatigue in the second half of the season. They had to stay in Toronto Sunday night due to a plane malfunction. Not much time to rest.
And so, Game 7. This is the truly undiscovered country, now — when Brad Marchand said before Game 5 that he thought Toronto was outplaying the Bruins since Game 1, he wasn’t entirely wrong. One numb frozen nervous game to start this series, and since then the Toronto Maple Leafs have belonged here, deserved this, and now the Bruins are on the brink with them, peering over the edge.
Game 7. The Garden. Every season waits.