SIMMONS: Huge team victory for Maple Leafs, but no time to celebrate with Florida up next

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When they shook hands after the final buzzer had sounded, the bosses Brendan Shanahan and Brad Treliving, there were no giant hugs, emotional shrieks or high fives: Really, this was just a moment to exhale.

For the beleaguered club president. For the second-year general manager. For the Core Four who have been around forever, and for the rest of the smaller name Leafs contributing large for a team that usually comes up empty.

This wasn’t a giant breakthrough for the Maple Leafs, this 4-2 Game 6 Battle of Ontario winning victory over the Ottawa Senators, winning the series 4-2. This was a series they were expected to win, needed to win.

The game was close Thursday night and the series with the Ottawa Senators was close right to the final minute.

The Leafs are moving on now to the second round of the playoffs and as difficult a series as this was to get through, next round is an entirely different level. Against the Stanley Cup champions. Against the team that just blew out the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round.

Against a team that kind of blew out a lesser version of these Leafs in the second round of playoffs just two years ago.

This is a different Leaf team now, a better version.

But for now, for today and maybe tomorrow, enjoy the ride, enjoy today however short the celebration may be. Thursday night was special for Shanahan and Treliving, for the longtime Leafs, for the long-suffering Leaf fans.

Shanahan and Treliving made the difficult decision last year to fire coach Sheldon Keefe, who had record-breaking won-loss numbers. They decided to bring in Craig Berube, who didn’t seem to fit this lineup or the city or the market.

But the choice began to look right from the day the season began and more right Thursday night than it has been at any time previously.

Almost everything Berube tried worked out for him and his club, even with the game tied 2-2 in the third period. Berube made the unusual decision not to remove the plodding veteran Max Pacioretty from the lineup, but to promote him to the second line. Pacioretty played a role with his long stick and his offensive mind to enable William Nylander to make the score 2-0 in the second period.

He hadn’t scored a goal since December, hadn’t had much of a season, really. But Pacioretty poked the puck, leading to Nylander’s first of two birthday goals. He started the game on the Leafs second line. In the third period, Berube inserted him on the third line.

He moved Pacioretty, essentially demoting him to the third line alongside Max Domi and Bobby McMann. And with just over five minutes left to play in a tied game, in a series about to be tied, Pacioretty got a puck in the high slot, not in a high danger situation necessarily, and scored the series-winning goal.

His only playoff goal for the Leafs. A player that the hockey world had written off after two seasons of injuries and recovery. And Pacioretty spent most of the season trying to get through the latest setback.

This is a product of what Treliving does and how the general manager thinks wide range about possibilities. He knew he couldn’t expect a lot from Pacioretty this season, but he thought there was a possibility of getting something when it mattered, a hockey moment from an offensive lifer.

And that something came from a goal and an assist in the biggest game of the Maple Leafs season.

This is how Treliving has gone about building this team. He signed goalie Anthony Stolarz, the career backup, who had never started a playoff game before this year, and he started every game for the Leafs this series.

He was a Treliving signing. So was Chris Tanev, the stay-at-home defenceman who quite simply makes the Leafs better. So was Oliver Ekman-Larsson, who had a sound series on the Leafs defence. And Treliving traded for Brandon Carlo, who completed Morgan Rielly, which wasn’t an easy thing to do.

All these years and all these dubious playoff attempts happened before Thursday night with the former culprits, Auston Matthews and Nylander and Mitch Marner central to everything that strong about the Leafs. They were significant in Game 6, Matthews scoring a seeing-eye goal, Nylander scoring two on his birthday, Marner, especially on the penalty kill, using his enormous skill to the Maple Leafs’ benefit. Significant when it mattered most.

The Leafs now advance because the general manager did his job well, because the first-year coach pulled the right levers, because the high-priced help helped out like they hadn’t before, and the first-year Leafs and the trade deadline Leafs came through, with a blocked shot from Scott Laughton in the frenzied final minute.

So much coming from so many players on a night where all the pressure was on the Toronto team.

When each of the last eight seasons ended, after nine playoff series and much grumbling, the Leafs had scored just 13 goals in the games that mattered most. Five games with one goal scored, one time being shut out, two times with two goals scored.

There were three scored against Ottawa before Nylander sent the fourth into an empty net, winning a series they absolutely needed to win, they had to win, they had no choice.

This win means something, just not for long. There is no time to really celebrate and probably not much of a reason to do so either. The Leafs escaped with a win in a series with three overtime games and barely enough room for either team.

They came through, from top and bottom — all of them, the players, the coaches, management. The series is now over. The reality of the Florida Panthers begins now.

ssimmons@postmedia.com
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