Maple Leafs refuse to lose, forcing winner-take-all Game 7 in Boston

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So many promising Maple Leaf playoff runs have hit a wall in Game 7 at Boston.

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This one just might break through.

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Given up for dead after a listless effort at home last week put them a loss away from elimination, Toronto has pushed back to force a winner-take-all match Saturday at TD Garden.

After failing to win its last six home playoff tests, including Games 3 and 4 versus the Bruins, Toronto defeated Boston 2-1 on Thursday night, its second win without top gun Auston Matthews.

The win, which came on the 57th anniversary of Toronto’s last Stanley Cup at Maple Leaf Gardens, came down to William Nylander’s two-goal performance, a shutout effort by Joseph Woll and some excellent defensive play down the stretch.

Nylander, who missed the first three games of the series, opened the scoring in the final minute of the second period when his long wrist shot into a crowd deflected off Charlie McAvoy and past Jeremy Swayman on the short side.

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He then scored the clincher late in the third when Matthew Knies sent him in alone for a breakaway deke.

The Bruins pulled Swayman for an extra attacker and were able to spoil Woll’s shutout bid when Morgan Geekie scored off a scramble with one second remaining.

Of course, there’s plenty of reasons to think the NHL playoff hockey gods will still favour Boston and are just toying with Toronto and its fans. This will be the fourth Game 7 between the clubs on Causeway St. in 11 years, the combined score in three previous Bruin wins 17-9. It’s also the third of the four meetings in which the Leafs came back from a 3-1 hole in the series.

But Toronto has won twice there in this year’s set, while the Bruins are now forced to face their own fallibility, on the verge of blowing a second straight 3-1 opening-round lead. The victor on Saturday faces the Florida Panthers in Round 2.

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In the Toronto dressing room on Thursday morning, there was palpable excitement coming off the Game 5 overtime road win and a last chance to make things right at home.

“It just starts with one game and you keep it rolling,” said defenceman Joel Edmundson, who was on the Montreal team that flipped a 3-1 margin on the Leafs in 2021 in an eventual run to the Cup final. “It’s kind of exciting, you’ve got nothing to lose, you just put everything into what you’ve got. There’s no tomorrow.”

Not only will there be a Friday and Saturday, the Leafs might get to another series where Matthews and winger Bobby McMann can return. Both skated on Thursday morning, Matthews for his longest session yet with an undisclosed injury since late in Game 4 and McMann for the first time after being shelved mid-April with a lower-body injury.

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“When we got down 3-1, that topic (Boston wasting a similar advantage on Florida in 2023) was brought up,” Edmundson said. “That was the positivity we needed, that anything can happen. It’s a long series anyway, you keep chopping away.”

Teams coming back from 3-1 holes are a rarity, with both Toronto and the Nashville Predators attempting to become the 33rd or 34th teams to pull it off since 1939. With the Kings, Islanders, Lightning and Jets already losing in five games, the number of times clubs were unable to rally has increased to 310. Boston is looking to defeat Toronto a seventh straight time in playoffs since the Leafs won in seven in 1959.

The Leafs would still need to win Saturday to halt increasing criticism of the franchise’s direction under president Brendan Shanahan, who has just one series win in a decade. He has a new boss in Maple Leaf Sports and Entertainment CEO Keith Pelley, who took control a month ago.

At ice level, head coach Sheldon Keefe also needs something better to show in playoffs for his three consecutive 100-point regular seasons. They might both be on firmer ground by Saturday night.

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