Maple Leafs Still Alive After 2-1 OT Win In Boston

It was Mccabe’s first playoff goal in his 11-year career. After spending most of his career with the Buffalo Sabres and a couple of seasons with the Chicago Blackhawks, McCabe did not get to play a postseason game until he came to Toronto. This was his 16th game in the playoffs, all with the Maple Leafs. 

Marner’s assist was his 50th playoff point in his 55th playoff game, the most by any active player on the Maple Leafs. It moved him ahead of Borje Salming into 12th place on the franchise’s all-time playoff scoring list. 

Boston Scores Its Only Goal of the Game

At the 13:54 mark of the period, Simon Benoit tried a short backhand pass to Pontus Holmberg in the Toronto zone to the right of Joseph Woll. The pass hit Patrick Maroon’s skate and bounced right out front directly to Trent Frederic. As soon as the puck hit the ice, Frederic snapped it into the Toronto net before Woll had time to react. 

The second period was evenly played. The shots were 11-10 Toronto, and both goalies stopped everything they faced.  

Boston took control of the game in the third period, and if it weren’t for Woll, this series would have been over. According to Naturalstattrick.com, the High-Danger scoring Chances were 8-1 in the Bruins’ favor. Woll made some fantastic saves in the third period to keep the score knotted at 1-1, sending the game into overtime. 

Less than a minute into the extra period, Woll would make a game-saver of a save on a shot by Charlie Coyle from about six feet in front of the Toronto net.  

The Maple Leafs Won the Game in Overtime

Just over two minutes later, Ilya Lyubushkin hit John Tavares with a stretch pass from deep in the Toronto zone to just outside the Boston blue line. Tavares entered the zone along the boards to the left of Jeremy Swayman. He kept to the outside of defenseman Matt Grzelcyk. Getting body position on Grzelcyk, he tried to bull his way to the front of the goal. 

Grzelcyk played it well. He prevented Tavares from working his way out front. However, Tavares did get a one-handed backhand shot away on Swayman. The puck rolled off Swayman’s pads right out front to Matthews Knies breaking for the net. Knies pounded the puck into the goal as hard as he could to give the Maple Leafs the win. 

Knies’s goal was his second of the playoffs. He also scored the opening goal of game three. Knies is the only Maple Leafs player with more than one goal in the series.  

Notes on Individual Maple Leafs Players

This game was Woll’s sixth appearance in the playoffs for the Maple Leafs and his third start. In 278 minutes played in the playoffs over two seasons, Woll has stopped 118 of 127 shots he has faced. He has a Save Percentage of 0.929 and a Goals-Against-Average of 1.94.  

Max Domi picked the right time for his best game as a Maple Leafs player. Replacing Auston Matthews, Domi was a beast on the faceoff dot, winning 12 of the 14 draws he took in the game, including the faceoff that led to the McCabe goal. Domi had the Maple Leafs’ best Expected Goals Percentage at 79.5%. 

Domi, Marner, and Bertuzzi were the Maple Leafs’ best line. They had a combined 76.6% Expected Goals and 73.8% of the Scoring Chances. 

The Tavares, Knies, and William Nylander line was no slouch either. They had 72.7% of the Expected Goals and 53.5% of the Scoring Chances.  

What to Do with Matthews If He Returns

It makes me wonder. If Matthews is healthy enough to play and if the Maple Leafs want to spread the scoring over three lines, could we see Head Coach Sheldon Keefe leave those two lines intact in game six and see Matthews center a third line? Could he be flanked by Nick Robertson and Calle Jarnkrok?

One strange and possibly disturbing fact is returning to the playoffs last season. The Maple Leafs are 6-2 on the road but only 1-7 at home. 

While the Maple Leafs only scored two goals in this game, Swayman looked ordinary on the two goals they scored. That was especially true of the overtime winner. If he were in the Maple Leafs’ heads, he showed a crack in the armor in this game.  

What’s Next?

The series returns to Toronto for game six at 8:00 pm on Thursday.  After Boston blew a 3-1 series lead to the Florida Panthers last season, the Maple Leafs have planted a seed of doubt in their heads again. If Toronto can overcome their miserable postseason home record and win Game 6, it will be the third time in the past four playoff series between the two teams in which the Maple Leafs have come back from being down 3-1 and tied the series at 3-3.  

One other interesting fact. Sheldon Keefe has never lost a playoff round to the Boston Bruins.