The Toronto Maple Leafs are onto the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs after defeating the Ottawa Senators, 4-2, in Game 6 on Thursday night to clinch their first-round series.
It is a huge win for a Toronto team that had to be feeling the walls starting to crash in around it after losing back-to-back games with a 3-0 series lead.
While it ended up getting a combined three goals from two of its biggest stars — Auston Matthew and William Nylander — it was an unlikely hero that ended up scoring the most important goal to save the series and send it through to the second round.
That hero — veteran forward Max Pacioretty.
Pacioretty scored the game-winning goal with under six minutes to play in regulation, giving him his first postseason goal since 2021 when he was still a member of the Vegas Golden Knights.
It is not just the fact that goal gave Toronto the lead late in the third period of an elimination game. It is that it came just a little more than a minute after Ottawa had tied the game, potentially unleashing all of the playoff demons that have haunted the Maple Leafs for the better part of the past decade.
This is a core that, prior to this season, had advanced beyond the first round just one time in eight years.
It is a core that entered Thursday’s game with a 1-13 record in its past 14 games where it had a chance to eliminate an opponent. It is a core that has invented new ways to lose games and series. It is a core that has consistently failed to produce in must-win games
It reached a point in their Game 5 loss back in Toronto that the fans were acting like they were the ones down in the series.
If Toronto had lost this game and gone back home for a Game 7, having lost three consecutive games, the vibes in that arena would have been horrific. The discussion leading up to that game would have been chaotic. People would have been waiting for them to lose.
When the Senators tied the game late in the third period, it almost seemed inevitable that they were going to be on their way back to Toronto for a winner-take-all Game 7 on Saturday night.
Thanks in large part to Pacioretty, the Leafs do not have to worry about any of that. They are through, and now they have to prepare for the defending Stanley Cup-champion Florida Panthers.
Pacioretty joined the Maple Leafs this past offseason on a one-year. $873K contract. He scored five goals with 13 points in 37 games. At his peak, he was one of the best goal-scorers in the NHL with Montreal and Vegas, but injuries have significantly limited him the past few years.
Since the start of the 2022-23 season he has scored just 12 goals in only 89 regular season games. The Maple Leafs only care about the goal he scored on Thursday.
