A reminder to the Bruins: Losing a painful Game 7 is what the Leafs do originally appeared in NBC Sports Boston
We’re about to find out what happens when the moving object encounters the resistible force.
The Bruins are trying not to choke up for a second straight postseason, the memory of last year’s epic failure against the eighth-seeded Panthers still burning a hole in the part of their brain that processes terror.
The Maple Leafs say, “Hold our Molsons.” Their history is as tortured as that of any team in the four major sports. They have won one playoff series in the last 20 seasons and one championship in the last 60, and their run of futility has stretched from the Prince of Wales to Clarence Campbell and beyond.
One of them will be crying: “Why us!?!?” again on Saturday, and despite the events of Games 5 and 6It’s not predicted that it will be the Bruins, even if it seems that way.
The last two games make no sense. It is unlikely that the B’s were dominated by a team that recently in game 4, he was fighting on the bench, losing their best player to injury and writing the press release relieving head coach Sheldon Keefe of his duties. The Leafs were prepared, but the Bruins are playing like those with everything to lose, saving their two worst stretches for the start of Games 5 and 6, when they were outscored by something like 150-1.
So now let’s move on to Game 7, which is exactly where the Bruins were last year and exactly where they didn’t want to be again this year. It would help if they stopped acting like they had already lost, all helpless, pointing fingers and pretending to be defiant.
The Bruins need to stop hyperventilating and remember that the Leafs are actually terrible at this.
They are the team that overcame a 3-1 deficit against the Bruins in 2013, only to blow a 4-1 lead in the third period of Game 7 before losing in overtime to Patrice Bergeron. They’re the team that overcame a 2-0 deficit against the same Bruins in 2018, only to blow another lead in Game 7 in Boston. This is the same team that lost another Game 7 to the B’s a year later.
It’s in Toronto’s DNA to lose this exact series this way, and if I’m Montgomery, I’m releasing highlights on all three Game 7s to remind the Bruins that they shouldn’t be afraid of history repeating itself, because history is actually , on their side.
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I wish I could say I am as confident as I was a few days ago, but the Bruins are playing with so much fear that they turned one of the league’s most average defenses into the 1995 New Jersey Devils, famous for the neutral zone trap. Suddenly they have little room to operate. It would be one thing if they fell victim to a hot goaltender, and Joseph Woll certainly outperformed the erratic veteran Ilya Samsonov, but the Bruins made Woll’s life easier by not testing him.
This may be related to the fact that they seem to need a few cartons of milk to stay upright. When they kept falling down early in Game 5, I blamed the Garden ice, even though it seemed to only be hindering one team. When they kept stumbling around in Game 6 like so many puppies — Pastrnak fell behind the net at one point after being pushed with all the force of a feather duster — we could only conclude that they’re more hurt than an abused Slinky.
They must find a way to ease that tension and let their checking work, because goaltender Jeremy Swayman has played well enough to win all five starts and the Leafs aren’t exactly generating A-plus scoring chances with regularity. The Bruins can win Game 7 with just two goals.
So relax and remember who you are playing for. The Bruins may fear a repeat of last year, but the Leafs have been blowing games like this forever. Get out of your own way and let them.
