TORONTO – A year ago, when his Toronto Maple Leafs found themselves at the wrong end of a loss in Game 7, their first-round offer led to an inglorious end, “disappointed and devastated,” with Austin Matthews describing where his mind was headed.
On Saturday night, standing in the bowels of Scotiabank Arena, with a sea hat lowered low over his eyes, young Leaf looked complete, with a man simply serving an even more agonizing dose of both.
“It’s a game of inches,” said Matthews with his hair still soaked from the heavy loss in Game 7 of defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning. “It simply came to our notice then. It’s really disappointing. It’s really disappointing. But I thought that everyone there competed and did their best.
“In the end, they made one game more than us and managed to win the match.”
In a series that swings like a pendulum between two teams with enough attacking flair to score, the finale took this wide open back and forth and caught it in the grip, the bats are ground through the destroyer of this wound to victory with 2-1 Bolts .
Three times during his posthumous examination, Matthews mentioned this difficult reality, the fact that it will surely remain in his mind for months and weeks: “It’s a game of inches.” A play of plays that are worth just one breath in one way or another, a puck falling right in range or rolling past it.
The fact that everything felt so achievable, so easy to comprehend, will make this loss the most difficult for the stomach for these Leaves. And the fact that this club fell against a team that many had identified as the ultimate winner, a team that no one has beaten in the postseason for more than two years, does not reduce the sting – it only makes it sharper.
“These are the consecutive champions of the Stanley Cup. This is a team that has also experienced a lot – they have gone through very heavy losses, a broken heart and have climbed to the first two consecutive years. We’re right there, ‘said Matthews, his voice breaking at the last words. “We’re right there.”
The captain repeated his feeling.
“It’s a tough hockey game. We just didn’t make another game, “said John Tavares for Saturday’s final. “The boys were competing. It’s just hard to explain. It’s obviously disappointing. Hard to understand. Especially the opportunities we had in the last two games. “
When Tavares, Matthews and the rest of their group finally wash away the agony of that moment when they reunite to analyze how things went wrong again and where they could push a little harder to break through the champions’ defense, a missed one opportunity will emerge a lot.
After special teams played in the first days of this series, leading the discussion game after the game, in exactly the same pocket of ice chaos Toronto let this one slip away. On three different occasions on Saturday night, Maple Leafs sent their stellar top power-play unit over the boards – the one that dominated most of the 82-match participation in these playoffs, the one that ended the year as the most productive in the game , the one that includes the most prolific goal scorer in the game.
And three times they returned to the bench empty-handed, those illuminated numbers on the board unchanged.
The odds started early. When the score was still 0-0 in the first period, Toronto received the first call in a match in which officials kept the whistles tucked away for most of the evening. They could not break through. Instead, the Bolts were the ones to change the scoreboard first, with Nick Paul scoring the first playoff goal of his career at the end of that starting period.
On the next shift, Toronto won another kick in the man’s advantage box, a gift from a chance for a quick response before the first period in the books. However, they were kept at a distance. And after a break to catch their breath, to think and think, the Sheldon Keef team opened the next period with the last 35 seconds of that time for a strong game to work with. But the Bolts did not move.
However, opportunities arose. At the beginning of the third, when Toronto was 2-1 behind, the game became a stalemate, none of the teams gave up an inch, another gold player fell in their way. Another chance for the hosts to get around the dead end and develop their creative muscle, stick their foot in the door that has just creaked open, and maybe just kick it.
Prepare every training session from October to Saturday morning, every session in the video hall, every rehearsal in the games of the regular season, preparing this team for the real thing – everything is reduced to this point. Five on four, one shot away, the season is on the line.
And yet, against the best of the Maple Leafs, the defending champions held the fortress. The figures outlined above have not moved. And the night ended with lines of handshakes.
It was not due to lack of experience.
Return to the film and you will see Matthews and William Nielander shooting from both sides of the zone at this first opportunity for a man’s advantage, with Tavares almost deflecting another in front. You will see how Marner tunes Michael Bunting and Ilya Mikheev to stop the heart in the dying seconds of the middle frame, with this second option. You will see an unprecedented attack on this extremely important finale – a look from Matthews, a one-off from Nylander, a crash in front of the net with numbers 91 and 16 trying to silence him, a shot from Morgan Rielly trying to score his second of the game and then more from Nylander, more from TJ Brodie, more from Mikheyev.
John Cooper’s veterans – the one standing high in the cage, in particular – welcomed the moment and held on long enough.
This is a game of inches.
“It simply came to our notice then. We had a chance, “Marner said at the end of the evening, looking as devastated and dejected as his teammate. “She did not enter. It’s just disappointing. “
Precisely because of the way these opportunities have been shaken, navigating exactly where these maple leaves go from here will not be an easy task. You can look at the overturning of the heartbreak from year to year and the accumulation of a salary cap on Toronto’s high-altitude core. You can see these three golden chances, which gathered everyone above the boards in the most important match of the season, which did not work.
But if you look closely enough, you will see that, unlike in previous years, this time the leaders were leading.
Matthews started as a force in Game 1 and fought until the end in Game 7. Tavares and Nylander came to life when their team needed them the most, in the most difficult sections of this series. Rielli scored his team’s only goal the night their season ended. And it was Marner, from the opening of the puck to the final referee signal, who kept putting his team in the position to get the rebound they craved, his seamless entanglement through Bolts’ bodies pulling the last two calls that put Toronto in the power game. and allowing them to infiltrate the Tampa area to get their chances, over and over and over again.
“Sometimes it’s just time,” Tavares said, trying to make sense of it himself. “Make the key play at the right time. And we did that on many points. Our capabilities in Game 6, many views. We tied him up tonight and we’re in place. There were looks in the third. They blocked a lot of shots – it was obviously difficult to get to the net and we had to find a way.
“You see why they won and did what they did.”
In the end, that was the difference. In this game of inches, that was the last inch. Champion pedigree, champion attitudes. This amazing, intangible ability to orient yourself collectively at the moment so that you fall, just slightly.
“It’s just not easy at this time of year,” said Stephen Stamkos, captain of the winners, after closing this chapter of seven games in his hometown.
“They have everything. We just have everything. ”
Add Comment