Short Videos for Again and Again
Maple Leafs give their all, but fall short again, losing Game vii against Lightning
The Maple Leafs accept marched this difficult trek before, from the handshake line on the ice to their silent dressing room to the media podium, a lost Game vii and a first-circular get out sending them to an early on summertime.
"We're getting sick of tired of feeling like this," said drained winger Mitch Marner every bit they captivated a sixth straight loss in an opening series. "This will sting for quite a bit."
While different from last May'southward meltdown against Montreal – had Toronto started that Game 7 with Sat's effort and a full crowd they'd probable have won that series – the Leafs did accept the two-time Stanley Cup winning Lightning on the ropes in the previous 48 hours.
They came back to pb in Game 6 before falling in overtime, brushed off Tampa's opening goal Sabbatum to necktie it and out-shot the Bolts 17-6 in the final period with a power play and pressed hard with Jack Campbell pulled.
Still a killer instinct still eludes them, now 0-ix in elimination games going dorsum to 2018. If the Hockey Hall of Fame had a Believe It Or Not exhibit, the Leafs would feature in it as the best squad never to win a first round series.
A tantalizing lx minutes from celebration mode for their fans inside the building and out, it's at present eighteen years of playoff angst since the society terminal advanced and going on 56 years without a title, the NHL'south longest dry spell.
This flavor, they had a 115-point guild composed of the possible Hart and Ted Lindsay winner Auston Matthews, an all-star right winger in Marner, goals galore and a solid up-tempo style, but ran into a champion unwilling to yield its throne.
"This hurts a trivial more than terminal year," head double-decker Shelson Keefe said. "This was a really adept team that actually played hard. And the fact we come up that shut confronting Tampa, what they correspond and what they've accomplished … that team has the recipe and they've figured it out."
On Sabbatum, that meant the Lightning scoring first to have the manic crowd out of the game and riding Andrei Vasilevskiy'due south goaltending into the next series confronting Florida.
"It's a fine line," said captain John Tavares of Saturday'due south result. "Sometimes information technology's just timing. Our opportunities in Game half-dozen, nosotros had looks in the 3rd tonight, they blocked shots and made it hard to get to the net."
Tavares as well had a tying goal wiped out by an iffy interference telephone call on Justin Holl.
Tavares, whose $11 million US cap hitting through 2024-25 makes adding to the roster a challenge, retains confidence the Leafs will eventually see their efforts rewarded in spring.
"The belief is strong in that room and how tight it is, to break through. We work all twelvemonth long to be ready for these opportunities. But like I say, it's a fine line."
The core of Matthews, Marner, William Nylander, Tavares and Morgan Rielly is no doubt going to need mental healing time. Lightning helm Steven Stamkos told them to keep their heads upward.
"That was one of the toughest series nosotros've probably played," Stamkos said. "They've got the star players, they've got the goaltender, solid defencemen, you go down the list and they've got everything. It's just, we believed in ourselves, too."
While the Leafs kept Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov at bay most of the series, Mississauga-born Nick Paul scored twice Saturday, on a rebound and a assuming blitz after the Leafs were caught backing up.
Rielly had the solitary Leaf goal subsequently Campbell fabricated spectacular saves on the Holl power play. Rielly took a Matthews drop pass and beat Vasilevskiy high, with Nylander near doing likewise on a partial break in the same menses. Vasilevskiy, as he always is in close-out games, made 30 saves.
Downtown Toronto on Saturday evening came closest to the all-time Game seven atmosphere in a home game since they met the Los Angeles Kings in 1993. Just that, also, was a loss post-obit a Game vi overtime defeat.
It was in many critics' heads that general managing director Kyle Dubas and coach Sheldon Keefe were done if the Leafs failed to get out of this get-go round and that someone from the 'Core Four' forwards had to go.
That stark prediction eased as the Leafs became season-long crowd pleasers, set many squad and individual records, came 2d in the Atlantic Division and filled SBA when COVID-nineteen rules eased. Keeping this series going for four loud and lucrative domicile playoff dates might also counterbalance in Dubas's favour.
Well-nigh of his roster miscalculations early in the season were fixed, though the Leafs nevertheless remain brusk of blueline and goaltending depth.
Campell could get a free agent and keeping him probable means winger Ilya Mikheyev's time is done.
Decisions must as well be made on UFA forwards Jason Spezza, who will be 39 this summer and defencemen Ilya Lyubushkin and Mark Giordano. Spezza, Giordano and Wayne Simmonds were i,000-game veterans looking to end their personal Cup droughts.
Coach Jon Cooper'due south Lightning, meanwhile, at present seek a different kind of history. Where winning but ane Loving cup in the salary cap era is a job, they're now 12 wins away from 3 consecutive, during which fourth dimension they accept a record of 17-0 in games following a loss.
"It's been exhilarating," Cooper said earlier Game 7. "I look back and 2019 doesn't seem too long agone, but in essence it was over 3 years since we had that heartbreak (a Presidents' Bays season catastrophe in a stunning four-game sweep by Columbus) and nosotros never really looked back.
"I've seen these guys in every arduousness possible and they've found a way to emerge. Has it been taxing? Not really physically, but probably mentally. To get upwardly every unmarried mean solar day and fight through things when you might say 'you lot know what? We've done information technology and it's OK if nosotros don't (echo)'.
"But these guys won't accept that. It'southward been pretty impressive. It'south been a blast these by three years and every bit I've told them, our story is not finished beingness written."
Just the 2022 Leafs take signed off.
lhornby@postmedia.com
Source: https://ottawasun.com/sports/hockey/maple-leafs-give-their-all-but-fall-short-again-losing-game-7-against-lightning/wcm/36dee223-0fcc-4c6c-b0ad-c8715253ae38
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