TORONTO — So confounding has been the suffocating performance of Sergei Bobrovsky through two games of this series, so daunting seems the task of halting the legacy-making run the netminder’s on, you can envision the Maple Leafs faithful pining for the days they had only to worry about Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Four nights ago, Toronto moved with the swagger of a city who’d made a titan look human. The Bolts, yes, but Vasilevskiy mostly, the unbeatable backstopper beaten 23 times over the blue and white’s six-game triumph.
But after a Thursday night at Scotiabank Arena that began with euphoria, descended into mayhem, and finished with misery, the Maple Leafs now head to Florida down 2-0 in their second-round bout, wondering what else they could possibly do to break down the brick wall that is Bobrovsky standing in their way.
Five minutes into a Game 2 collapse that head coach Sheldon Keefe called “baffling,” this wasn’t a question these Leafs thought they’d be asking.
No, through those early minutes, it seemed like Toronto was right on track, pulling out the same trick they came up with a round ago — the Game 2 revival — as they stacked two quick goals on Bobrovksy. It all seemed to be going their way — the tallies, the power-play punishment, the barrage of chances.
But slowly, it began to turn, the ice tilting and the pucks tumbling in quick succession into the Maple Leafs’ cage, Toronto falling behind. And back on Florida’s end, the door slammed shut.
“I think you need your goaltender to win you a game every series, and he did that tonight,” Panthers coach Paul Maurice said of the oft-maligned veteran once the final buzzer had sounded on a 3-2 Florida win. “You get behind the bench some nights and you get a feel for your goaltender, going, ‘Man, he’s just, he’s not getting beat again.’
“That’s what he gave our team.”
It wasn’t easy. The Maple Leafs threw everything they had at the 34-year-old, testing him 37 times over the course of the night. None but the early pair made it through.
Add to that the flurry of chances from the home side that seemed to ask all the right questions of Bobrovsky, but wound up glancing off the post, sliding just an inch too far in the crease, or bouncing over a stick, and the Leafs sounded like a club out of ideas when their best held court in the locker room post-game, trying to sort through the missed opportunities in their heads.
“I think it’s sticking with it,” Auston Matthews said of how his team can break through against Bobrovsky in Game 3. “I must have jumped out of my seat about three times, I thought we had the puck in the net — (but) it’s laying right there, it’s just missed.
“I think we just want to continue to stick with it, clean up some of these little breakdowns that we had. Keep our foot on the pedal.”
His captain echoed the sentiment.
“I think you keep putting pucks there, you keep challenging him,” Tavares said. “You keep trusting your instincts and trying to, obviously, beat him on your looks. And then continue to find second and third opportunities.
“We have to continue to try to get there and make it difficult on him. And obviously just keep shooting.”
The problem at the feet of these Leafs is that the run they’re trying to stop, the boulder barrelling forward that they must halt, has been rolling for more than just this pair of games in Toronto. It’s moving also with the momentum of three straight wins over the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Boston Bruins in Round 1 — three do-or-die nights to keep this team’s season alive, to author a playoff-altering comeback.
For whatever confidence can be gleaned, at least, from the fact that the Leafs rained down a barrage on Bobrovsky in each of their two losses — 36 shots in Game 1, 37 in Game 2 — the man on the other side seems to just be taking it in stride. It’s simply more of the same, Bobrovsky having averaged 39 shots-against from the B’s over that historic three-game series comeback.
Reflecting on the Thursday-night win that extended his run to five straight post-season W’s, Bobrovsky didn’t seem like the exhausted, weathered, just-hanging-on opponent the Leafs faithful would’ve hoped for.
“It was two good games. It was fun, you know?” Bobrovsky said. “Playoff hockey. It was fun. I’m just fortunate to be in this spot.”
The night was decidedly less enjoyable on the other side of the sheet, where Ilya Samsonov had a promising showing undone by a Maple Leafs squad that came undone themselves over the course of 60 bizarre minutes of hockey.
No. 35 was by no means perfect in this one. But as he has done for this club so many times before, he gave them every opportunity to win this pivotal Game 2, coming up with important saves at important moments to keep the game within a shot.
The first came just moments after Alex Kerfoot put Toronto up 1-0 two-and-a-half minutes in. Rewind back to the Maple Leafs’ last Game 2, and there too came an early goal — and then a tying goal on the very next play, negating the strong start. This time, Samsonov made the save — turning away a pair of wild shots — allowing that start to breathe.
The next came just minutes after Florida had finally scored their first of the game. The Panthers had cut Toronto’s lead to 2-1, finding life. The Maple Leafs’ structure was beginning to slip. Suddenly, they were bearing down on the Leafs’ cage on a two-on-one — Zac Dalpe was sliding the puck over to Aaron Ekblad, who found himself all alone in front. Samsonov was there, laying out, holding him at bay.
In the final seconds of that increasingly chaotic first period, he was there again. This time it was this series’ ultimate Leaf Killer looking for the tying goal — Matthew Tkachuk finding himself with the puck on his stick, a shooting lane wide open in front of him, 19 seconds on the clock. Again, No. 35 came up with the save, holding them off.
But what seemed like a momentary crisis averted was in fact the beginning of a slide.
A minute and a half into the second period, the Leafs’ lead was gone, and the Panthers had built their own.
First came a brutal turnover from William Nylander inside 30 seconds, the winger picking the puck up in the neutral zone, cutting back towards his own blue line, and falling. Anthony Duclair picked up the gift, gave it to Aleksander Barkov, and the Cats captain wired the tying goal past a screening T.J. Brodie. 2-2.
While that one was still being announced over the arena’s PA system, another gaffe arrived. This time it was Mitch Marner, carrying the puck up the left wing in his own zone, dropping a pass back to Matthews rather than delivering it safely to the neutral zone. And then it was No. 34, inside his own blue line, trying to flip the puck up and overtop of the Panther standing in front of him — instead, it fell easily to Eetu Luostarinen and the Cats, who pounced as the Leafs scrambled, Tkachuk whipping a cross-ice pass to Gustav Forsling, who beat a sprawling Samsonov.
“Disappointing. Baffling. We didn’t make those mistakes one time in the last series,” a terse Keefe said post-game, when asked about how this one fell apart in that second-period stretch.
“We obviously had a couple mistakes — we’ve just got to do a better job with taking care of the puck,” Tavares added. “It obviously put us in a tough spot. We have to do better. … They’re ready to pounce on mistakes, and they have the skill to make those plays and make you pay. So, we’ve got to be diligent, and continue to be sharp, and (aware of) just how important each and every play, and every puck, is.”
Even still, after being burned by the teammates in front of him on those two goals — and by a world-class Sam Reinhart setup from behind the net on Florida’s first of the night — Samsonov did what he could to keep Toronto in it, shutting the door for the nearly 40 minutes that followed.
In the end, it wasn’t enough.
“Again, the result is bad for us,” Samsonov said post-game. “I think I need to go back home and look in the mirror, and ask what I need to do more on the ice for the team. I think this is what we need to do — everybody.”
After giving up seven goals through the first two games of this series, there’s improvements to be made in the netminder’s game, no doubt. But roll back the tape, and you’ll see just as much correction needed in front of him.
“I just think (it was) a couple mistakes, and they’re very good at making good on their opportunities, especially coming off turnovers,” Matthews said of the blunders that sunk his netminder Thursday. “Obviously we need to make good on our chances. I felt like we had enough offence and enough chances to get us back in the game, or even earlier, to extend our lead.
“We couldn’t capitalize, and that was it right there.”
The task only gets tougher from here, as the Leafs now move into the next phase of this series needing four wins in five games to keep this run alive. Needing some way to break through against Bobrovsky as he channels his 2019 Blue Jackets David-and-Goliath form.
But while all focus around this city will remain on the other side of the rink, on Bobrovsky and Tkachuk and how the Panthers managed to impose their will on Toronto, count the Maple Leafs’ own underdog ‘tender uninterested.
“I don’t give a f–––,” Samsonov said Thursday, when asked about the impact of Bobrovsky doing what he’s done so far. “It doesn’t matter to me. I’m doing my work, he’s doing his work.”
If Game 3 is to go any differently, the rest of his club will need to follow his lead — channelling that fire, directing it to their own work — before the next test arrives Sunday.
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