SUNRISE, Fla. — The vultures circled for two days, wondering if Friday would indeed be the demise of the Toronto Maple Leafs.
Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, and the Maple Leafs were so ineffective in Wednesday’s blowout by the Florida Panthers, and the public’s response to that 6-1 dismantling was so harsh, that the opposing coach felt it necessary to stick up for them.
“They got killed for that last game,” Paul Maurice said late Friday night at Amerant Bank Arena. “They didn’t deserve to, in my opinion.”
What Matthews, Marner and the rest of the Maple Leafs do deserve — by virtue of their stingy, patient, persistent 2-0 road win in Game 6 — is a do-over.
A chance to spin Wednesday’s boos into Sunday’s cheers.
Facing elimination for the first time this spring, with the score deadlocked at zeros 46 minutes and 20 seconds into what threatened to be the final game of an era, Matthews and Marner combined for a moment.
The Moment.
In a game thin on mistakes and fraught with nerves, Marner pounced on a rare Panthers mess-up on a breakout in which Florida’s top defence pair was under no duress, then fed the puck to his streaking centreman.
Matthews fired the thing quick and low and through both stud D-man Gustav Forsling and stud goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky.
Yes, it took until his 11th playoff game against this opponent. Yes, he waited till the 11th hour. But the series’ most frequent shooter finally smacked the back of the net on his 24th shot. The vultures backed off.
“That one felt great,” Matthews said. “It’s a big win from our group, from top to bottom. And we earned that. Earned ourselves a win-or-go-home situation. And I think that’s really exciting for our group.”
Sage veteran Max Pacioretty — who scored the insurance marker and his eighth career goal when facing elimination — extolled the effort of Matthews and Marner, who came out and dominated the first period, contributed to a 4-for-4 penalty kill, and generated 66.7 per cent of the scoring chances when they were on the ice at even strength.
“I mean, this is such a huge, huge goal. You know, that’s a situation where no one wants to make a mistake. You could feel the tension on both sides at that point in the game. And just an unbelievable shot from an unbelievable player — and that’s why he’s our captain,” Pacioretty said.
“Just so many good plays that I can replay in my mind, of winning stick battles and winning puck battles to seal that win. You know, I’ve never been as good as them, but I’ve been in their shoes a little bit, where you’re kind of judged on one thing as a player. But they bring so much to this team and as a group. It doesn’t go unnoticed, and it showed tonight.”
It also showed that Craig Berube was smart to double down. The head coach’s Plan B is to make Plan A work.
When critics called for a split of Matthews and Marner, a fresh look, a wake-up call, anything, Berube stuck to his guns. “I trust them. I believe in them,” he said Friday morning.
And when Matthews’ production dried up, the prescient Berube preached confidence and made a prediction: “Big goal’s coming.”
How’s this for a wild stat? Of the 110 players in NHL history with 400 career regular-season goals, Matthews woke up Friday as the only one with zero career goals past the opening playoff round.
He picked a fine time to join the other 109 in the club.
In addition to committing to the details that make his coach happy: smart puck management, willingness to block shots, not cheating for offence.
“It starts with his determination, his leadership that way,” Berube said. “Rubs off on the rest of our team when they see him going the way he was going tonight. I thought he was very determined tonight. Competed extremely hard and touched all areas of the game.”
Matthews’ joyous moment came after a frightening one.
Aleksander Barkov sticked him in the eye when the two stars were hunched for a faceoff, and Matthews skated off the ice, his vision blurred. A short trip to the dressing room caused Leafs Nation to hold its collective breath.
“Little scary there,” Matthews explained. “Had some trouble seeing, so they just wanted to go check it out in the room and let it calm down. And I was kinda able to get some decent vision back and finally go back out there. But they definitely wanted to check it out, make sure it’s all good.”
It’s all good now.
Matthews and Marner responded strong from a stinker. They, and their teammates, battled their way to a redemption shot. On the home ice they fought so hard to earn and last left under a shower of boos.
“Like we’ve talked about all year, we don’t care,” Marner said of the doubters. “We just go out there and we want to do our thing. That’s what you love about this team, there’s a lot of trust in that locker room with one another.”
Best-of-one, Sunday, 7:30 p.m. ET in Toronto and on Sportsnet.
Huge game. We trust you’ll want to tune in.
“It’s a lot of fun. I can’t wait,” Pacioretty smiled.
“We’re going to war.”
With the Panthers, the demons, and the haters.
Fox’s Fast Five
• Matthew Knies absorbed a reverse hit from Nikko Mikkola late in the first period and laboured through till the buzzer with an apparent upper-right-leg injury.
The power forward remained in the game but missed a couple of shifts and, playing at half speed, was moved off the top power-play unit and down to a sheltered third line for a spell.
He pushed through obvious pain.
“That’s what you love to see,” Marner said.
“He’s a competitor. I thought he fought hard,” Matthews added. “When he got out there, he was still hard on pucks, and hopefully he’ll be good to go on Sunday.”
Berube said Knies needs further evaluation. The Leafs will see how he feels Saturday before determining the winger’s status for Game 7.
• We framed this as the biggest week of Woll’s career, and the playoff backup has delivered under immense scrutiny.
“We weren’t worried about him for one second,” Bobby McMann said, following his teammate’s 21-save shutout. “He was just solid all the way through — square to pucks, on rebounds, sliding across for back doors. He was all over it tonight.”
The guy is developing a reputation as a big-game goalie, going 4-1 when facing elimination. Which is why his unavailability for 2024’s Game 7 in Boston lingers as a what-if for the franchise.
“It sucked not be able to play last year, for sure,” Woll said Friday. “This is a pretty special opportunity for our team. We feel good going in, and we know our process, and just gonna take that through.”
• Steve Yzerman was in the barn Friday.
Can’t help but wonder if the Detroit Red Wings GM was scouting the most coveted unrestricted free agent of the 2025 class.
• Berube was mic’d up for the TNT broadcast. Good, simple, loud stuff, especially his rapid recovery after flinching from a puck cleared hard at the visitors’ bench.
• The Maple Leafs blocked a season-high 31(!) shots in Game 6 and now lead all post-season teams in the category (270). The next closest is Washington with 228.
“The biggest thing I saw was guys putting their body on the line, especially the last couple of minutes,” Woll said. “A ton of block shots. A couple times, two or three guys in front (of me) laying down to eat the pucks.”
Toronto’s commitment to stuffing the lanes is a problem for Florida.
“They’ve had a big number the entire series. We kinda expected that,” Maurice said. “Just thought we were late getting it off our stick. I thought we were waving the gun a lot but didn’t want to pull the trigger on a few. Just made people nervous.”
More from Sportsnet Matthews scores winner as Maple Leafs beat Panthers to force Game 7Status of Maple Leafs’ Knies unclear after Game 6
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