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TORONTO — There used to be a second, because the puck hovered above the centre-ice dot, simply prior to it hit the sheet to start out this bar-room brawl of a second-round check, when you want to really feel the strain ripple a number of the 19,031 packing the Scotiabank Arena stands. When you want to really feel the uncertainty of what this subsequent phase would seem like for the Toronto Maple Leafs, after a short lived weekend of aid and triumph.
It’s something to consider your staff can do what it’s intended to do, that it will possibly sidestep its playoff ghosts and deal with an opponent the standings say it must. It’s every other to wonder whether it will possibly take down a large, if it will possibly dethrone a king. Toronto discovered that lesson the onerous approach two years in the past, in contrast identical Goliath.
And so there used to be a second, prior to all of it started, when all the ones questions swirled.
Then the puck dropped, the 2 golf equipment charged out of the gates, and William Nylander fired a target into the Florida Panthers’ web prior to the evening used to be 40 seconds previous.
“Outstanding,” defender Morgan Rielly mentioned of No. 88’s quick-trigger tally, which noticed Nylander pick out the puck up simply throughout the Panthers’ blue line, lift it down the fitting wall, and beat Sergei Bobrovsky glove-side. “He came out and he was feeling it.”
“First shift for him — huge goal,” fellow blue-liner Chris Tanev added after the mud had settled on a 5-4 Game 1 victory over the Cats. “Gets the group proper into it, units the tone for a way we would have liked to play. Great get started.
“We’ve just got to continue to build on that.”
On this evening, they did. Twelve-and-a-half mins later, after a good few extra possibilities for the house aspect and a momentum-building penalty kill, Nylander struck once more — choosing up a rebound within the slot, giving Bobrovsky some shake-and-bake, and wiring the puck top-shelf from one knee. He threw his fingers prime, and the group roared, this continuously awkwardly quiet barn vibrating with a glint of hope and optimism nobody noticed coming.
In the overall mins of what may’ve been the most productive opening length this Maple Leafs core has controlled within the post-season, the inevitable wobble got here.
A too-many-men name, with Toronto at the energy play, in their very own zone, freed from any strain, let the air out of the balloon. An influence-play level shot from Seth Jones deflated it absolutely, despatched the item skittering off into the nook, because the puck floated by way of Anthony Stolarz and were given Florida at the board.
It used to be the kind of unforced error that’s sunk the Maple Leafs time and time once more within the playoff pressure-cooker, typically adopted by way of a string of endured mistakes that finally end up burying the blue-and-white. This time, it took not up to 20 seconds for the Maple Leafs to secure themselves. Before the Panthers had time to bask of their plot twist, Nylander flipped a saucer move to a streaking Rielly, who carried the puck into Florida’s zone on a two-on-one and whipped it by way of Bobrovsky’s blocker, restoring the house aspect’s two-goal lead.
In doing so, No. 44 etched his title in franchise historical past, environment the document for post-season objectives by way of a Maple Leafs defenceman.
“It’s cool. But, you know, ultimately we’re still chasing one thing,” Rielly mentioned of the little bit of historical past post-game. “You ask anyone in here, no one’s really focused on anything else besides that.”
With the Maple Leafs having a look extra calm, extra amassed, extra poised during the early going than somebody at the opposing aspect most likely anticipated, the Panthers took issues into their very own arms, resorting to another tactic to get the membership off its recreation — early in the second one length, Florida’s Sam Bennett tagged former teammate Stolarz with an elbow to the again of the pinnacle, sending the netminder to the ice in ache.
By the center of the length, Stolarz skated to the bench, obviously ill, and used to be changed by way of Joseph Woll — it used to be in the end introduced the Leafs’ starter used to be performed for the evening. Fast-forward a length later, 5 mins into the overall body, and the Panthers had hung two objectives on Woll, chopping Toronto’s result in one.
Craig Berube referred to as a timeout, providing his squad a easy message:
“Tighten up, dig in,” mentioned Rielly.
“Play our game,” remembered Tanev. “Forecheck — play in their end as much as we can.”
“Just settle down,” Berube mentioned himself of the message delivered all over that a very powerful timeout. “I believed we had been backing off an excessive amount of, no longer being competitive anymore, particularly during the impartial zone. We roughly sagged again somewhat bit an excessive amount of and allow them to get to their recreation an excessive amount of.
“So, it was just, ‘Get on our toes again. Let’s get up, get our gaps up, get our angles up.’”
Once once more, the house aspect steadied. With six mins left in what used to be then a one-goal affair, the Panthers starting to seem like the membership that’s rolled during the post-season for the previous two years, it used to be younger Matthew Knies who grabbed the instant and wrestled it into submission.
With chaos spilling into Woll’s crease, a Cats rush leading to defender Jake McCabe flying into his netminder and toppling him over, Knies took the puck off a Mitch Marner chip move, flew down the ice, and beat Bobrovsky with a forehand-backhand good looks.
It grew to become out to be greater than only a wanted observation from the house aspect, a overdue Bennett target turning Knies’ tally right into a game-winner.
“I just saw that I could spring myself past their D, and Mitch made a great play on the wall there to get it to me,” Knies mentioned of his target. “I just wanted to beat him high on the glove side — we did a lot of video, and I thought I got him earlier [there] in the regular season. I just wanted to elevate that one. It worked out for me.”
It’s no longer the primary time all over this post-season run that the 22-year-old has arise take hold of for his membership, neither is it the primary time that momentum has been swung within the Maple Leafs’ favour by way of a galloping, indomitable breakaway strive from No. 23.
“He’s been incredible,” Rielly mentioned of the younger winger. “Those goals, when he’s at high speed like that coming down, are extremely impressive — that’s not easy.”
“He’s a pitbull out there, with some nice hands,” quipped Tanev. “When he gets half a step on guys, it’s tough for anyone to catch him. He’s done a bit of everything for us, at a very high level of play. It’s been huge for us.”
Added netminder Woll, who without a doubt completed the evening thankful for the bail-out: “He’s a special player, man. He’s a horse. … He’s got a lot of maturity, and he shows that. I think he’s pretty unfazed by all that [pressure] — he just goes out and does his job.”
With No. 23’s newest highlight-reel second within the books, the Maple Leafs transfer on with a 1-0 sequence lead few anticipated to peer at the ledger by the point the Monday-night tilt had come to an in depth.
But greater than the electrical get started, the composed nearer, or the sterling particular person performances from the blue-and-white’s leaders in between, it’s the larger image that issues maximum right here. The mettle, and the expansion, that used to be proven. The indisputable fact that those Leafs — even with the strain peaking, even with the protecting champs coming at them, even with possibly an important member in their squad knocked out of the sport — nonetheless controlled to come back out at the proper finish of items.
“I think we’ve been in tight games throughout the season, where other teams are pushing, and we’ve just found a way,” Nylander mentioned of ways they did it on this one. “We dug into that, and tried to bear down and grind out the W.”
