Maple Leafs vs. Senators: Matthews and Nylander score, Toronto holds narrow Game 6 lead after two periods

Hamilton Spectator

02-05-2025

The
Maple Leafs
have a chance to put the
Ottawa Senators
away (again) tonight.
After taking a 3-0 series lead in the
Battle of Ontario
, they now find themselves up 3-2. Toronto will advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs with a road win tonight. Can they pull it off?
Follow the Star's Game 6 live blog for updates and commentary from columnist
Bruce Arthur
.
Might as well get the money quote out of the way toot sweetie.
'All I hear around here is core, core, core. The Core 4.''
And Craig Berube has only been 'around here'' for one season. These are the veteran coach's first playoffs behind the Maple Leafs bench.
Berube is a lunch-bucket, no-nonsense guy with a throwback sensibility. But he can't possibly truly grasp how sags the spirit in Toronto or the twitchy dread of his longest-tenured players on a team that has watched a 3-0 lead in the opening round of the Atlantic Division series lurch into a 3-2 sinkhole of anxiety.
Read the full column from Rosie DiManno
The Leafs are 1-13 in series-clinching games since 2018. Auston Matthews, right, and Mitch Marner, left, have combined for just four goals and 10 assists in those 14 games.
OTTAWA—Maple Leafs coach Craig Berube put his team's mindset in the simplest terms as it prepares for Game 6 against the not-dead-yet Ottawa Senators.
'Let's go. Ready to go. Business. Let's go,' said Berube.
The Leafs find themselves in the driver's seat, up three games to two, while also battling the demons of the past, a record of 1-13 in games in which they could put away an opponent since 2018. They say they're not letting that get to them.
You just try to block all that stuff out,' captain Auston Matthews said. 'The main focus is on the guys in the room, on the team and playing for one another. That's really all there is to it. All the outside noise, all that stuff, it is what it is. It's not something that you focus on at all.'
Get the latest from Leafs reporter Kevin McGran
Are the Toronto Maple Leafs really doing this again?
It was 2021 when former Leafs assistant coach Paul MacLean's haunting words were uttered between Games 6 and 7 against the Montreal Canadiens. The Leafs, heavy favourites in that first-round playoff series, were comfortably up three games to one before losing the next two in overtime.
Amazon's 'All of Nothing' documentary captured a coaches meeting where MacLean spoke about what was at stake for Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner.
'You can exorcise so many f—-ing demons. And they've got demons in their heads, they've got 'em in their car, they've got 'em under their f—-ing beds,' MacLean said to former head coach Sheldon Keefe. 'Everywhere they turn there's a f—-ing demon with a loss on it. The biggest obstacle this team has right now is themselves.'
Four years have passed, but the demons haven't left.
Read the full column from Nick Kypreos
Sens captain Brady Tkachuk celebrates his goal against the Maple Leafs in Game 3.
Captain Brady Tkachuk promised Senators fans after Game 4 that his team would be back at the Canadian Tire Centre for Game 6. He followed through on that, and now he's asking those attending Thursday night's game to make a difference.
'This is not just about our team, it's about our city,' Tkachuk told reporters after Ottawa's morning skate. 'You can feel the excitement and we're going to need it tonight.'
Tkachuk, who has three goals and three assists through the series' five games, was also asked if the Senators had played their best playoff hockey yet.
'There's no chance we're ever going to be complacent with where we're at. We always want more,' he said.
So, here we are. These Leafs aren't last year's Leafs, or the Leafs before that. They have better goaltending, in theory. They have a better top defence pair. And critically — again, in theory — they have a weaker first-round opponent in the Ottawa Senators.
You could see all of that come to bear as the Leafs opened up the 3-0 lead in this series. And while that's in the rearview mirror, those games were important: they gave the Leafs breathing room, in case things went wrong. Which leads us back: here we are.
It's not an exaggeration to say Game 6 in Ottawa is the biggest game in the career of the core Leafs: of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, John Tavares, Morgan Rielly. Lose this game and you go back to Toronto for a Game 7 played over a trap door, against a young Sens team that isn't afraid of you, with the greatest failure in an era full of playoff failures looming over every second, every decision, everything. Win this game and you get to exhale for about 15 seconds before turning around and finding a Florida Panthers team that has more playoff success in the past two seasons than the Leafs have in the previous 25.
Time to figure out whether you have this figured out, Leafs, if just for a night. Let's watch.
Nobody wants to be reminded of this moments before a playoff game that feels like a must-win for the Leafs — even if it technically isn't.
But these numbers, courtesy of Sportsnet Stats, highlight just how difficult it's been for Toronto to close out playoff series over the last several years.
Maybe tonight will be different.
The Leafs will once again try to close out a series
pic.twitter.com/I4Y2c36KJM
The Ottawa rink is still one of the most inconvenient arenas in the league; a traffic nightmare from downtown, narrow concourses, dated and old. Going to Senators games can honestly sometimes feel like it's a garage franchise, to borrow a phrase.
One time I ate a pre-game meal there and it felt like we were eating leftovers. I have a montage of pictures of Craig Custance of The Athletic laughing bitterly as he ate it. Well, tonight, with no disrespect to Edmonton, the Canadian Tire Centre is the centre of the Canadian hockey universe. This is a Leafs game people will remember, one way or another. It's going to be fascinating to see whether the Leafs look nervous, indecisive, desperate in the wrong way. Because lord knows we've seen them look like that before. Tonight's opera is underway.
Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews each have one goal through five games in this series. Marner has six assists while Matthews has five.
In 14 series-clinching games since 2018, the Leafs duo has combined for four goals and 10 assists. Toronto will need them to step up tonight.
The Star's Kevin McGran is in Ottawa and took a photo of the two stars finishing their pre-game routine, where they're the last players on the ice.
16-34
pic.twitter.com/JHlvLLgtwk
'Matthews' balding!' 'Marner's leaving!'
The Ottawa crowd has been hot, and this game had almost no whistles, very little sustained zone pressure, and not a lot of scoring chances either way until that last push by the Senators, and the penalty on John Tavares.
They're chanting "Marner's Leaving" chants in Ottawa 😭
Mitch Marner is a free agent at the end of this season
pic.twitter.com/5uqTroyPIZ
One thing I am watching for tonight, by the way: Of the 14 Leafs goals in the series, five have come from defencemen: two from Oliver Ekman-Larsson, two from Morgan Rielly, one from Simon Benoit. In the regular season, the six defencemen dressed tonight scored 17 of Toronto's 267 goals. What I am saying is, the production is unlikely to be sustainable, and the pressure on the core of this top-heavy team might actually be higher than it looks.
Every time the Leafs come close but don't score - Max Pacioretty and then Max Domi had glorious chances just now, but Pacioretty hit the post and Domi's shot was deflected wide in the crease - we're all going to wonder whether the Leafs are gripping the sticks tighter, and tighter. Again: there are so many past examples of how the Leafs lose a game like this, and they're going to have to find a way to write a different ending.
One thing that Leafs fans should feel good about is this Senators team really doesn't have a lot of high-end pop. They work hard, but Brady Tkachuk is clearly playing through something, for one thing. Stützle was on the wrong side on that Ottawa 3-on-2, and couldn't get there. The Sens do have a lot of guys who could skate or hit or grind their way to a goal, but the Leafs have been limiting their shot attempts for long stretches, while losing the shot attempt battle. Now Tkachuk is in the box, and the Leafs have a chance to rev up the power play again. The first PP in Game 5 was really dangerous; we might say this 30 times tonight, but Toronto needs to take advantage of an opportunity like this.
There you go. The Leafs had been 0 for their previous 30 on the power play in elimination games, but Matthews was brilliant there: absolutely wrong-footed Ullmark with a changeup along the ice, and the captain scores his second of the series.
PAPI PRECISION 🎯
@Rogers
|
#LeafsForever
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Matthews and Marner had produced almost nothing of note at 5-on-5 in that period; neither, for that matter, did Nylander or Tavares. The longer this game stayed scoreless, the more the pressure was going to build. Now the Leafs get to take a breather, and feel good about themselves, going into the second period. The big guys still need to be more dangerous, though.
Elliotte Friedman makes a good point: whoever put the wrong number on William Nylander in the lineup card could have gotten Nylander disqualified from the game. That would have been an incredibly iconic Leafs moment, right? Alex Nylander's numbers instead of William? Had nobody noticed before puck drop, that would have been an all-time boner. That is a bullet, dodged. I can't decide if it's a good omen, or a bad one.
Really does say Alexander Nylander haha
pic.twitter.com/VAIC1ker8E
Good thing William Nylander wasn't accidentally disqualified on his birthday. Fresh ice, Senators make a mistake, and Nylander didn't make a mistake. His only other goal in the series came on a 5-on-3; this one was bigger.
A gift for all is always in Style 😎🥳
@Rogers
|
#LeafsForever
pic.twitter.com/ZQCAzrFqk5
Still tons of time, and Anthony Stolarz is going to need to be solid. But the Senators only had four shots on goal in the first 22 minutes of this game, and the Leafs have scored twice.
As soon as the Leafs went up 2-0 they were back on their heels, and Tkachuk gets the deflection after a Nylander giveaway.
Scoring chances are 7-1 Sens in the period, per Natural Stat Trick, and Matthews threw away a puck from behind his own net a couple minutes ago, and now the breathing room is ... limited.
VOLUME ALL THE WAY UP FOR THIS CROWD REACTION 🗣️🗣️🗣️🗣️
#GoSensGo
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Stolarz wasn't going to stop that, but he's going to have to have a good Stolarz game, it appears. Go ahead and do this for 35 minutes, see how it goes, sure.
Tavares hits the outside of the post. Matthews already hit a post. This game is swinging back and forth, but if you're a Leafs fan, one thing you like is that Matthews and Marner have geared up. They're winning puck battles, first and foremost. That's a good sign.
You can say this a lot, but the effect is heightened as a series goes on, so: the next goal is huge.
The difference between pushing this to a 3-1 lead and blowing a 2-0 lead, especially in the third period of a road game, is massive, massive for the Leafs right now. They're getting chances, but Linus Ullmark has gotten better as the series has gone on.
Right now, the big difference in this game is the Senators power play was quiet, and the Leafs made good on their one PP chance. There have only been two penalties; at 5-on-5, there hasn't been a big difference between these teams.
Can the Leafs' best guys break through one more time? Can they get a depth goal? Can a team whose puck possession numbers have been awful play 20 minutes of defensive hockey to end this series?