The Toronto Maple Leafs survived to fight another day with a 4-3 victory over the Boston Bruins in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinal on Saturday, but not without putting their fans through the trauma of nearly reliving the greatest collapse in the club’s 101-year history.
Toronto played with the level of desperation not seen previously in the series, down 3-1 and facing elimination. Outscored 12-4 in the first two games at TD Garden, the Leafs were able to get on track offensively in Game 5.
“I just know that the guys were engaged.” Babcock said following the game. “Our goaltender was good. We got the early lead and we were able to hang on. Obviously, you'd like to not have all those penalties so you can spend more time in the offensive zone grinding on them. A big win here for our team, we get to go back to our building.”
The return of center Nazem Kadri and some line juggling by head coach Mike Babcock generated goals from three of the Leafs four lines and Auston Matthews had his the best performance of the series, assisting on Connor Brown’s opening goal.
With all of factors in their favor, the Leafs took a commanding 4-1 lead midway through the second period, but that by no means provided any sense of security, as the Bruins core group (Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand, David Krejci, Zdeno Chara, Adam McQuaid, Torey Krug and Tuukka Rask) were all members of the squad that came back from that exact score in Game 7 in 2013.
As with five years ago, the Bruins took complete control after Toronto had established their three-goal lead, , but unlike the crumbling of James Reimer and the Leafs defense in those infamous final 11 minutes, Frederik Andersen and the club’s penalty killing saved Toronto from another memorable collapse.
“That was a little bit nerve-wracking, but that's maturity.” Kadri said. “We were able to weather the storm. Playoff games on the road, sometimes you've just got to survive and it was a good road win.”
Toronto trailed 3-1 in 2013 and won Game 5 in Boston and Game 6 at Air Canada Centre to force the infamous Game 7. At this point, Babcock and the Leafs are just looking for one more win to have a chance to make those memories a little less painful.
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