Florida Panthers goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky defends the goal against Toronto Maple Leafs left wing Matthew Knies on May 16, in Sunrise, Fla.Lynne Sladky/The Associated Press
Really, there is nothing to get excited about. Sunday night’s meeting with the Florida Panthers is only the Toronto Maple Leafs’ biggest game in decades.
They last won a Stanley Cup in 1967. They last won a conference final that same year, and with it the opportunity to contest hockey’s biggest prize.
They cheated death on Friday night by staving off elimination on the road in Game 6 of their second-round playoff series against the defending Stanley Cup champions. With one more victory – on home ice at Scotiabank Arena – they will move on to the Eastern Conference final against the Carolina Hurricanes.
Simple enough, but not really. They have lost their last six Game 7s, and their futility in post-season have made them the butt of many jokes in the National Hockey League.
“We have to get rest and focus on what we focused on on Friday,” Craig Berube, Toronto‘s head coach, said Saturday before the team boarded a charter flight home. “I don‘t think a whole lot needs to change. We have to be determined. We have to be desperate. We have to have urgency.”
Maple Leafs beat Panthers 2-0 to force Game 7 and keep playoff run alive
The Maple Leafs ousted the Ottawa Senators from the opening round in six games. They won the first two against Florida before losing the next three. Then somehow they mustered an effort that has evaded them for many years. It led to a 2-0 victory against a club they were clobbered by on Wednesday.
“I expect Sunday’s game to be a lot like last night’s,” Berube said. “You wait around for it all day, which is a little bit painful, but once you get going it’s great.
“There is a lot of emotion, a lot of intensity. It’s a lot of fun. I enjoy it.”
Florida hopes to play in its third consecutive Stanley Cup final. It had everything going its way until Toronto got its back up in Game 6. Tight defence and great goaltending
“I guess we are going back to the drawing board,” Matthew Tkachuk, the Panthers captain, said after the defeat. “At the end of the day we were down 2-0 in the series so we would have loved a Game 7 and this opportunity.
“We aren’t going to sit here and pout about it. It’s an opportunity for us to make a name for ourselves again.”
It seems as if the Panthers have found that special something that makes them a Stanley Cup contender every year. Very few teams are able to do that.
The Maple Leafs are vying to breathe that same rarefied air. With their season on the line, they got a winning goal from Auston Matthews – his first of the series – in the third period. Joseph Woll was brilliant, recording 22 saves in his first career playoff shutout.
“It is really easy to get frustrated or deviate from the plan, but we were really patient,” Max Pacioretty, who had Toronto‘s other goal, said. He is 36 and has scored eight goals in 16 games when the teams he has been on faced elimination. “Playoff hockey is about staying patient and we did that.
“The goal by Matthews was just huge. It came in a situation where nobody wants to make a mistake. You could feel the tension on both sides. It was an unbelievable shot by an unbelievable player. That’s why he is our captain.”
So now Toronto is facing its second win-or-enjoy-the summer contest. It may be without Matthew Knies, he was injured on Friday. His availability for Game 7 remains unclear.
“We did our job here, and we still have a job to do,” Scott Laughton, a centre on the Maple Leafs, said on Saturday.
That is a sentiment that resonates throughout the roster.
“When you get a shot at playing in a big game, that’s when you dream about as a kid,” Oliver Ekman-Larsson, a Toronto defenceman, said.
A year ago he won a Stanley Cup with the Panthers. Now he wants to send them home.