2023-05-13 09:09:19
The Leafs have evolved and this year they have reached “disappointment 2.0”following eliminating Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round, in this second they met the other team from the Sunshine State, the Florida Panthers who had taken away the great dominator of the regular season and one of the great favorites for the Stanley Cup, Boston Bruins. A tie that should not have been easy, in fact it cost them elimination, but a team that is competing for the title, and that with its current squad, should even be aspiring to mark a dynasty, has left the competition without having control of the tie.
And this game that has closed the series has been a sample of it. Sheldon Keefe’s men began with the intention of tightening the screws on Paul Maurice’s pupils, but a stick up Jake McCabe that he sent it to the fridge changed the local plans.
Florida gave everything in that numerical superiority and Aaron Ekblad’s goal began to nail the lid on Toronto’s coffinand put his team in command of the party.
After eight minutes the opportunity to be one more for those in blue and try to recover the initiative arrived, but they might not beat Bobrovsky or at least establish a siege of the opposing goal.
The cats quickly left their area with danger and a counterattack finished off by Carter Verhaeghe with the shovel ready to the right of Woll’s goal and make it 2-0 that closed the first period and made the survival mission of their rivals even more difficult.
Equality and controversy in the second period
The second period was a give and take by both teams and would have an individual protagonist, Morgan Rielly. First with a goal at 7:50 in which Toronto, following evading Florida’s forecheck, managed to reach the vicinity of Bobrovsky. Rielly’s shot had a lucky deflection by Nick Cousins that left Bobrovsky sold and left the difference in one goal.
But the luck that accompanied the native of Vancouver, he lacked in the play that will haunt the nightmares of many of those whose hearts beat for them. Maple Leafs. With less than three minutes remaining, Rielly celebrates that his shot has become a goal, he celebrates it first alone and then as tradition dictates with the bench, but following a minute’s break, the referees do not concede it claiming that when the puck crosses the line, the play was already stopped even though the whistle was not blown.
Disbelief and outrage among the public who threw animation towels and other objects on the ice that stopped the game even more, but which ended up resuming.
Pressure on the Leafs
Had I been able to start the decisive period calmly, the Leafs were under pressure to tie at least to avoid defeat and with the possibility of certain elimination before their eyes they did their best to achieve it.
But the minutes slipped by with scandalous speed for Toronto and slowly for Florida that he was still looking to give the blow that would finish off the tie.
When the rope was already tightening the locals, Nylander got the goal that saved the furniture for the moment and that the game would end up going to extra time, although neither team gave up solving before sudden death, but without success.
No concessions in the extension
It was not time for hot cloths, and in both teams the desire to win appeared before the fear of losing, but the goal did not arrive. Until less than five minutes before halftime, in one of Florida’s typical counterattacks came the goal from Nick Cousins that closed the series, brought glory to Florida. Toronto, to wallow in misfortune in case the no goal from Morgan Rielly, he complained that Radko Gud grabbed the stick Jarnkrok Street in that decisive play, but there was no reversal of that goal and it was decided that the Panthers will be the rivals of the Hurricanes in the series that has the Prince of Wales Trophy and a place in the grand final for the Stanley Cup.
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