Past and present collide in Tampa with the Maple Leafs on the verge of rewriting their history
TAMPA, FLORIDA – And so once again the Toronto Maple Leafs stand at the crossroads of habitual failure and something akin to a brave new world.
For 18 straight years, the Maple Leafs have approached this same point on the road and ended up on the rutted path of failure. And each time for 18 years, that failure has added another brick to the load that the next version of the team has had to carry.
And so on and so on. Until now.
Thursday night in Tampa, the 2022 version of the Toronto Maple Leafs, as shiny and talented and hopeful as any that have hit the ice since the team last won a playoff round in 2004, will step onto the ice at Amalie Arena with a chance to not just vanquish the two-time defending Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning but to put an end to an epic cycle of playoff despair.
It’s almost too much to consider, isn’t it?
The last time the Maple Leafs won a series was in Game 7 versus the Ottawa Senators on April 20, 2004.
How much time has passed?
A lifetime? Define a lifetime.
A career? In many cases, yes.
To grasp or at least attempt to grasp how long ago that was, how much time has passed, how many opportunities have come and gone since that night, consider that Hall of Famer Joe Nieuwendyk scored two goals in the first period of that game, both from along the left boards against Ottawa Senators netminder Patrick Lalime. Both goals came from roughly the same low-percentage angle, both eminently stoppable, the second a bit closer than the first with 20 seconds or so left in the period, prompting legendary play-by-play man Bob Cole to wonder aloud: “What’s going on?”
The three first-period goals would provide enough offense to push the Leafs past Ottawa 4-1 in that seventh and deciding game at what was then the Air Canada Centre.
Looking back, it was a who’s who of hockey’s elite on the ice in that game.
Hall of Famer Brian Leetch picked up an assist on the first Nieuwendyk goal that gave the Leafs a 2-0 lead and would ultimately stand as the game-winner.
The first Leaf goal was scored by Chad Kilger with an assist by Tie Domi, whose son Max is trying to help Carolina get by Boston in the first round this spring.
Bryan McCabe got in on the game-winner for the Leafs and scored the fourth and final goal of that now-historic series. He’s currently the director of player personnel for the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Florida Panthers.
Hall of Fame netminder Ed Belfour earned the win in one of the greatest one-series performances ever, with Belfour shutting out Ottawa three times. He and his son, Dayn, now run a successful distillery out of Texas.
Hall of Famer Ron Francis was on that Leaf team and played 15:30. He’s now the GM of the Seattle Kraken. Another current NHL GM, Tom Fitzgerald, played 13:18 in that last Leaf playoff series clincher for the Blue and White.
The Leafs would be dispatched in the second round by Philadelphia, and Leaf captain and future Hall of Famer Mats Sundin would end up leading the team in playoff scoring with nine points.
Bryan Marchment was a depth defender for the Leafs in that deciding game against Ottawa. His son, Mason, is an emerging young player with the Panthers.
The late, great Pat Quinn, another Hall of Famer, was behind the Leaf bench. John Ferguson Jr. was the team’s GM. He is now the assistant GM of the Arizona Coyotes.
Another Hall of Famer, Marian Hossa, earned an assist on the lone Ottawa goal, as did a future Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara.
Many believe Leaf forward Alex Mogilny, he of the one shot on goal and 14:33 of ice time that night, should be in the Hall of Fame.
Nieuwendyk’s good pal Gary Roberts played 16:44 in Game 7, had four shots on net and has gone on to train many of the game’s current and coming NHL stars, including Tampa captain Steven Stamkos.
How much time has passed?
A lifetime? Define a lifetime.
A career? For sure.
Ask Jason Spezza. The second-overall pick in the 2001 draft was in street clothes for Game 7 in 2004, having been replaced by Antoine Vermette in Game 6 by Ottawa head coach Jacques Martin.
Now Spezza stands on what is likely the end of a marvellous career that has seen him play 1,248 regular season games. He played in a Stanley Cup final with Ottawa in 2007 and has collected 75 points in the 95 post-season games in which he’s played.
Spezza, 38, is in his third season with his hometown Leafs. He was in the lineup for the dramatic comeback in Game 5 Tuesday night in Toronto which saw the Leafs trail Tampa 2-0 early and then hang on to take a 3-2 lead in the third period. The Bolts tied it, but the Leafs answered again with an Auston Matthews goal that was the deciding marker in an epic 4-3 win.
Spezza’s teammates spoke with admiration at how the veteran forward addressed the team after the first period and how he encouraged under-siege netminder Jack Campbell during an early television timeout.
Wouldn’t it be more than a little poetic, a little karmic, if Spezza was on the ice when the Leafs broke the cycle of losing? There would be a kind of poetic symmetry to it all if you ask us.
But hockey gods, if they exist, are fickle beasts.
Yet anyone following along with the Maple Leafs for the last 18 years knows that already.
Daily Faceoff’s Mike McKenna suggested the Leafs are like Ebenezer Scrooge in A Christmas Carol, faced with reconciling his odious past with his present and of course the future yet to be written.
And to be sure, the Leafs have had opportunities like this in the past.
Four straight playoff years, they’ve come within one win of eliminating opponents in the first round, including last year’s embarrassing blown 3-1 series lead against Montreal. Each failure to seize the moment is part of the canon of failure Leaf fans know all too well.
As much as players on the current Leafs roster insist that those other seasons belonged to different Leaf teams, on some level every current roster carries the weight of those failures, carries the debt that the fan base demands be repaid for the years of loss. And each year that debt becomes greater. That’s unfair, of course. But it’s also the reality of sport and fandom. Ask the Chicago Cubs or the Boston Red Sox. And so on. Until this team or the next one or the next one can find a different path, a different narrative, all that is left is the past and what was left undone.
Unless, per chance, the moment for a new narrative is at hand.
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