Into the Unknown: What happens next after Maple Leafs’ first playoff series win 19 years?

Credit: © Nathan Ray Seebeck-USA TODAY Sports

They led in the third period against the Boston Bruins on May 13, 2013. They lost Game 7.

They led in the third period against the Bruins on April 25, 2018. They lost Game 7.

They led in the third period against the Tampa Bay Lightning on May 12, 2022. They lost Game 6.

And Saturday, April 29, 2023, the Toronto Maple Leafs found themselves in that familiar position once more, carrying a 1-0 advantage into the third period, holding a 3-2 series lead over the Lightning.

It wasn’t just the three third period collapses haunting the Leafs during their 19-year playoff series win drought, either. They entered Amalie Arena Saturday with a streak of 11 consecutive defeats when attempting to eliminate an opponent from the Stanley Cup playoffs. If you’re nostalgic for 1980s video games that didn’t allow you to save your progress: the Leafs were the kid who kept dying at the same level, on their last life, and getting Game Over.

Nary a Leaf fan, then, trusted that it was over after Toronto played an excellent second period in Game 6. For the first time since Game 2, the Leafs were regularly winning puck battles and earning zone time roughly equal to Tampa’s. They earned Auston Matthews’ go-ahead goal on a period of sustained pressure, culminating in T. J. Brodie setting up Matthews for a heavy one-timer.

Through 40 minutes, the Leafs showed all the spirit their fans could dream of given the immense pressure. But the first two periods of elimination games were not the proving ground these Leafs needed to conquer. They’d made it this far before. What would define this core in 2022-23 was always going to be whether it could finally land a knockout punch on a Tampa Bay team that had won 11 of its past 12 playoff series.

And for the fourth time in 12 tries to eliminate their opponents in the playoffs since 2004, they blew a third-period lead. It took all of 4:11 for Steven Stamkos, the 500-goal scorer, to somehow get lost in the Leaf zone and find himself all alone to bury the rebound off a Darren Raddysh shot. Here. We. Go. Again.

It was like a time loop watching the Leafs retreating into a petrified shell with the score tied in the third, spending their rare attack time fiddling around the boards, second guessing, doubling back, not playing to take what they wanted, but holding on and hoping for the best. The Lightning held a 13-4 edge in 5-on-5 scoring chances in the third.

That edge carried into overtime, too, and manifested in what looked to be a game-ender for Mikey Eyssimont, sprung for a breakaway off an ill-timed missed net by Timothy Liljegren in the Tampa zone.

But then something happened: the Leafs got a save. They got that save, the one they hadn’t gotten since Curtis Joseph and Ed Belfour patrolled their crease in the early 2000s. Ilya Samsonov, putting the exclamation mark on the best game of his career, denied Eyssimont point-blank, getting revenge after Eyssimont beat him with a softy in Game 5.

Samsonov bought the Leafs time to seize their moment. They finally earned some threatening offensive zone time with some cycling from captain John Tavares and rookie Matthew Knies. Tavares shielded the puck, turned at the left faceoff dot, fired – said a few Hail Marys – and watched the biscuit trickle through Andrei Vasilevskiy into the Lightning net.

Game over. Series over. Mini curse over. The curse – 56 years without a Stanley Cup – remains very much alive, but the Leafs have killed its tagalong sibling. ‘Just win a round’ can no longer be hurled as a common debate-settling taunt.

“They’ve been through a lot of shit to get here…it’s about time one went our way,” coach Sheldon Keefe told reporters Saturday night.

And with that, these Leafs venture into the great unknown. Deadline pickups Ryan O’Reilly and Luke Schenn have the Cup rings. But the quartet of Toronto first-round draftees has now punched its first ticket to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs. It’s series win No. 1 for Morgan Rielly (2012), William Nylander (2014), Mitch Marner (2015) and Auston Matthews (2016).

“It gets the monkey off the back for a lot of us who’ve been here a long time,” Matthews told reporters. “But it’s the first step in a long journey.”

So now what?

What version of the Toronto Maple Leafs rides on into the second round?

Multiple times over the years, Matthews has made references to previous star-studded teams that couldn’t win the big one and finally broke through, be they the Detroit Red Wings of the 1990s or the Washington Capitals of 2017-18. The Capitals had never escaped the second round of the playoffs in the first 13 seasons of Alex Ovechkin’s career. As soon as they slew their minotaur, the Pittsburgh Penguins, that was it. Mental block lifted. The Caps went all the way. So the uber-optimist might wonder if the Leafs, knocking off the most battle-tested team in hockey, might flourish as we haven’t seen them before with the first-round demon exorcised.

Maybe. Maybe not. The Leafs have plenty to clean up as they wait for one of the Boston Bruins or Florida Panthers to enter the ring with them. Their power play lost its rhythm in the final couple games of the series. They went 3-0 in Tampa, winning all three road games in overtime, but were 1-2 at Scotiabank Arena, looking much tighter in front of their own fans. They struggled to drive the play against the Bolts, badly outchanced at 5-on-5 in four of six games. So it’s entirely possible their flaws come back to bite them, and we end up remembering the 2022-23 Leafs as a Happy to Be Here pushover in Round 2.

But here’s the thing: We don’t know what will happen. The Leafs have finally earned themselves the chance to chuck the floaties and swim into the deeper waters. They got Herculean efforts from their star players in Round 1, most notably Matthews, who scored five goals in the final four games of the series. Samsonov wasn’t necessarily consistent but stood tall in the clutch moments, stopping 10 of 10 shots across three overtimes. Rielly played the series of his life. Knies proved he belongs. And Keefe showed a willingness to adjust when, six games into the series, he sat struggling defenseman Justin Holl, dressed seven blueliners and moved Michael Bunting back into the lineup.

It wasn’t perfect. But the Leafs finally had the right ingredients to deliver in the pivotal moments of a series.

For the first time in almost two decades, nobody knows what comes next.

“A great feeling when the puck goes in and have it be Johnny,” Rielly told reporters. “But you want more, you want to keep going. We’re looking forward to the challenge (of the next round).”

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Into the Unknown: What happens next after Maple Leafs’ first playoff series win 19 years?

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