Toronto Maple Leafs to play Game 7 against Tampa Bay

Auston Matthews let his actions on the ice do the speaking all season.

Toronto’s star sniper additionally did not mince phrases with the Maple Leafs getting ready to face yet one more Sport 7 showdown and the extraordinary stress of previous playoff failures casting an extended shadow.

The NHL’s first 60-goal man in additional than a decade desires his workforce to embrace the second.

In reality, he expects it.

“That is all you are able to do,” Matthews mentioned within the aftermath of Thursday’s 4-3 additional time loss that noticed the Tampa Bay Lightning keep away from elimination and power a winner-take-all finale in a sequence that is featured razor-thin margins and little sustained momentum.

“We have simply bought to place our balls on the road and go for it.”

The Leafs will host the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions in Saturday’s Sport 7 as they endeavour to lastly flip a post-season script suffering from notorious collapses and missed alternatives.

“That is the proper option to describe Sport 7s,” Toronto head coach Sheldon Keefe mentioned Friday of his greatest participant’s feedback earlier than the Leafs flew dwelling. “It requires an all-in effort. You have to put every thing you’ve gotten into the sport.

“It is going to be two groups that can go away all of it on the market.”

Mark Giordano smiled when requested about Matthews’ blunt phrases.

“We have to have that mentality,” mentioned the veteran defenceman. “We have to consider in ourselves. We’re adequate to beat anyone.”

The Lightning, nevertheless, aren’t simply anyone.

A battle-tested and battle-scarred roster is aware of what’s required presently of yr after overcoming its personal playoff heartbreak.

Toronto, in the meantime, remains to be desperately attempting to get to that stage because the workforce continues to seek for its first sequence victory since 2004.

The core of this Leafs group – Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly – has now had eight probabilities over the past 5 playoffs to beat an opponent in an elimination sport.

They’ve did not get the job carried out every time.

The Leafs might have altered the narrative in Sport 7 final spring at dwelling towards the Montreal Canadiens – the rink was empty save for 550 health-care staff due to COVID-19 restrictions – however fell flat to place a doubtful exclamation level on a blown 3-1 sequence lead.

Then there was Toronto’s lack of ability to beat the Columbus Blue Jackets within the 2020 post-season bubble and back-to-back seven-game defeats to the Boston Bruins in 2018 and 2019.

However challenges are one thing these Leafs have met head-on all season. They began gradual, discovered their sport within the fall and handled an enormous coronavirus outbreak, solely to complete with a franchise-record 115 factors – good for second within the Atlantic Division and home-ice benefit within the first spherical.

Toronto has additionally fought again from 2-0 deficits over the past two video games versus Tampa, profitable Tuesday at Scotiabank Enviornment earlier than arising brief in Thursday’s additional time thriller.

“All of the work we put to get into this sequence and to compete on this sequence has ready us to be in a state of affairs the place we give ourselves an opportunity to win,” Keefe mentioned. “Due to all that work, (Sport 7) occurs to be in Toronto.

“The sensation in our workforce is considered one of nice confidence.”

On the opposite facet, Tampa head coach Jon Cooper mentioned his gamers cannot assume the Leafs’ post-season demons will likely be an element Saturday.

“I do not suppose we will look again at what occurred to Toronto in previous and suppose, ‘We bought this,”’ he mentioned. “We would be sorely mistaken if that is the perspective we took.”

Acquired from the Seattle Kraken earlier than the commerce deadline, Giordano remembers the thrill of the final Sport 7 in Toronto some 18 years in the past when the Leafs topped the Ottawa Senators within the first spherical.

“It is an enormous alternative for us to be part of that as gamers,” mentioned the 38-year-old, who grew up in Canada’s largest metropolis. “We’ve one sport the place it is all on the road.

“It is an important factor to be part of.”

The excellent news for Toronto is the workforce’s massive weapons have led the way in which a lot of the sequence, with Matthews, Marner, Nylander and captain John Tavares all stepping up at key instances.

“They have been leaders,” Giordano mentioned. “I’ve simply been actually impressed with the manner of the group.”

He added the butterflies for Saturday will most likely begin sooner than typical.

“Gonna be onerous to have your pre-game nap and all that as a result of you are going to be so excited,” he mentioned. “However that is an excellent factor. Which means you care and also you’re actually wanting ahead to taking part in in that sport.

“It is gonna be an incredible environment.”

Keefe believes, like Toronto’s greatest participant acknowledged emphatically Thursday after getting agonizingly near lastly breaking by its playoff ceiling, that the Leafs will rise to the event.

“This workforce has bought a number of battle,” he mentioned. “Does not make the sport or the problem or the opponent any simpler, however we definitely aren’t uncomfortable. We’re prepared for it.”

This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Could 13, 2022.