The Maple Leafs, better late than never, finally win a playoff round

TORONTO – The plaza outside the empty NHL arena home to the Maple Leafs was packed and hopping like a mosh pit on a damp, cold — even for Canadian spring — Saturday night.

Far south in Tampa, Florida, center John Tavares scored in overtime against the Lightning to end an excruciating stretch of playoff futility for the Maple Leafs. Kyle Dubas, the team’s general manager, who has long been criticized for persisting in his underperforming roster, exploded to his feet in his arena box and soared into the air like a prizefighter. Behind the bench, coach Sheldon Keefe was harassed by his assistants, and the players jettisoned their sticks, clambered over the boards, and piled on their teammates on the ice.

Back in Toronto, near and far from the outdoor crowd watching the game on a giant screen, car horns blared through this old playoff wasteland. Ah-onk! Ah-onk! Ah-onk!

The crowd, some screaming members, some crying, some set off fireworks, some suddenly shirtless, throbbed like a nightclub crowd. A few dramatic revelers climbed lampposts, hung on one hand and filmed the scenes with the other.

It was thrilling madness for a city that has only had a few chances this century to go hard on sports: when Sidney Crosby scored the winning goal for Canada in the championship game against the United States at the 2010 Olympic Games in Vancouver; when Jose Bautista’s three-run shot (and subsequent batflip heard around the world) helped the Blue Jays win an American League divisional series in 2015; and when the Raptors won the NBA Finals in 2019. Ah-onk! Ah-onk! Ah-onk!

The Leafs, who last won the Stanley Cup in 1967, had not won a playoff round since 2004.

“Which is hard to believe!” chirped Darryl Sittler, the popular Leafs captain who played 12 seasons in Toronto in the 1970s and early 1980s and still holds the NHL record for most points scored in a single regular season game with 10.

Mitch Marner, a Leafs right winger from a Toronto suburb, called it a “relief”. Auston Matthews, the American star center, called it “quite exciting” and “one small step on a long journey.”

After beating Ottawa in 2004 and when they lost to Philadelphia in the second round, the Leafs missed the playoffs the following season. Then missed them again. And again. And again. And again. And again. And again. In 2013, they ended their drought, but were baffled by the Bruins in a Game 7 slump that Torontonians still grumble about. Then there were three more seasons where I missed the postseason.

“When we lost our first game at home, everyone was like, ‘Oh, here we go again,'” Sittler said of the lopsided loss that opened this year’s series to Tampa Bay. “But then we win the second, and then go to Tampa and get some breaks, unlike other years where the other team got the breaks and we collapsed. Boston has kind of destroyed our hopes and opportunities in recent years.

That explained the singing crowd in Maple Leaf Square: “We want Florida! We want Florida!” The Panthers obliged by making a comeback from a 3-1 series deficit in Boston on Sunday night.

When the Leafs drafted Matthews first overall in 2016, they began to surround him with millions of dollars in talent – mainly Marnerthe fourth overall pick in 2015; Tavares, a free agent signing in 2018; and right wing William Nylanderthe team’s first round in 2014.

Still, good regular seasons ended in playoff disappointments. The NHL’s young glamor team left Toronto every spring in a spiritual breakdown. But Dubas left the core intact, adding and subtracting in goal and around the edges, pinning the longest-serving Leaf, the talented defender. Morgan Rillywith an eight-year contract extension in 2021.

“Management believed in them and stuck with these guys,” said Sittler. “We believe in them. And they’re going to take us to where we think this hockey club could go.

After the game, Keefe said he felt all year that this season was different from previous ones. “I’m thrilled for Leafs fans to get to see second-round hockey,” said Keefe, who is in his fourth season as head coach. “It has felt different all season. and I’m glad I can now say it’s different.”

Undeniable weight was placed on the Leafs season on November 11, when former Leafs star Borje Salming, a Swedish defenseman, was honored for the annual Hockey Hall of Fame Game.

Salming, who had late-stage amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, also known as Lou Gehrig’s disease, had traveled to Toronto from Sweden for the occasion despite being unable to speak, having difficulty walking and requiring a feeding tube. With Sittler and Mats Sundin, the retired Swedish center, at his side, stood three men who defined the Leafs’ long-suffering past as the present and the future looked on. When Sittler held Salming’s right arm in the air to acknowledge the crowd as they left the ice, the past, present, and future were one.

“I saw a stoic look on every player’s face,” said Sittler. “I got very emotional because I think not too long ago it was Borje and I, young guys, who love what we do, play on a Leafs team in a packed house.”

Salming and Sittler came close to a Stanley Cup in 1978 when the Leafs lost in the conference finals. He doesn’t remember it by the year, but by the number of games against each team and what they were like: needing seven tough games against the Islanders and then losing to an outstanding Montreal Canadiens team four times in a row.

When the Leafs had another successful run in 1993–94, reaching the conference finals for the second season in a row, Sittler worked in the front office.

“The city was on fire,” he said. “People honked their horns up and down Yonge Street as the flags flew.” He added: “It’s been so long since most of today’s fans weren’t even alive when they won the Cup in ’67. It’s been so long, you know.”

Toronto knows.

“I’ve seen the Raptors win in town,” he said. “As the Leafs, that’s a few steps up in size. Everyone is waiting for it.”

After being embarrassed, 7-3, in Game 1 against the Lightning, the Leafs won three in a row, including two on the road in overtime. In Game 4, Toronto fell behind 4–1, then scored three goals in the third period in just over six minutes before winning in overtime. It’s been a season of heroics for the Leafs on the ice and beyond, generations apart, in a city that, to say the least, finished.

“Being a Maple Leaf is special,” said Tavares, who was born in suburban Toronto and played for the Islanders before signing a seven-year, $77 million contract with his childhood favorite team in 2018. for people, especially with some of the disappointments we’ve had.

In November, Sittler cried next to Salming for the brutality of ALS, not hockey. The Globe and Mail columnist Cathal Kelly wrote that night that it was Toronto’s own Lou Gehrig moment, “the great image of the past 20 years of Leafs’ history.”

Salming died a few weeks later at home in Sweden.

What no one has said aloud is that Gehrig died in June of 1941 and the Yankees won the World Series four months later. The Leafs have a long way to go, but symbolism hangs heavily on this franchise, this city.

Sittler remembered that night when the Leafs players shook Salming’s hand and hugged him. “There wasn’t a dry eye in the place,” he said. “It’s hard to even write a script like that, to make it happen.”

Now against Florida, the Leafs will try to come up with an ending to that unfinished script, which Salming and Sittler haven’t been able to write themselves.