Toronto Maple Leafs goaltender Anthony Stolarz lays on the ice after being run into during second period of Game 1 against the Florida Panthers.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
If the Leafs could dream a result, it would look something like their first 30 minutes against Florida on Monday night.
It wasn’t the score (4-1 by that point). It was a vibe. Toronto could not make a mistake. Florida did just about nothing but.
There was a moment in the first where Max Domi tried to say ‘Hi’ to new snowbird Brad Marchand, and was penalized for his trouble. Sure, he broke Marchand’s stick. But in a friendly way.
That would have been a good moment for Toronto to lose the plot, but they didn’t.
Marchand, in Toronto, causing chaos, and nothing comes of it? This is a brand new day.
At that point, a sweep wasn’t likely, but it was imaginable.
Then Florida did what the Leafs have never been able to manage - plan ahead.
Toronto players were doing everything right, but no one was doing more right things than goalie Anthony Stolarz. So Florida decided he should leave.
Sam Bennett got him in the crease with a sneaky elbow. Well, sneaky to the officials, who missed it. Obvious to the other 20,000 people in the building.
A few minutes later, Stolarz went to the bench and appeared to vomit. He left shortly thereafter.
“He’s being evaluated, that’s all I got for you,” Leafs coach Craig Berube said afterward.
This is a time of year where torn muscles and mildly broken bones are described as “feeling some discomfort. “Being evaluated” - especially the clipped way in which the normally sanguine Berube said it - does not sound great.
It was a deeply cynical move on the part of the defending champions, and like so many of those these days, it may work.
With Stolarz gone, Florida’s formerly flailing goalie, Sergei Bobrovsky, vampirically draw off his vigour. He was suddenly great. His teammates grew more spry, and less frantic.
Meanwhile, the Leafs brought out Joseph Woll. The former No. 1 hadn’t played in nearly three weeks, and looked it. His teammates grew more sedate, and less engaged.
The raucous crowd got very quiet, very quickly when Woll let in a bobbled puck.
4-2.
No problem.
Another soft one got by him. 4-3.
Okay, getting serious now.
Toronto pulled ahead again, before Woll let one float over him from what was nearly a 90-degree angle to the near post.
Toronto won the hockey game 5-4, but it’s possible they lost the head game. We won’t know for sure for at least another week.
The most advertised playoff problem in Toronto is AWOL forwards, but that’s because of the financial factor. Nothing drives a sports fan wilder than the thought that someone is overpaid. The idea of someone being bad on the cheap doesn’t annoy them nearly as much.
That wrinkle shades the real problem - goalies. The Leafs haven’t had one you could believe in since Johnny Bower.
The club has only played seven games in this post-season, but Stolarz was becoming that sort of goalie. He’s not a streaky gymnast in net, the kind that gets people excited. He’s more a stolid presence. You can go whole games without realizing he’s being good, and then you see the final score.
As a former Panther of longstanding, it’s fair to assume that Florida knows when Stolarz is on a heater. Maybe it took them 30 game minutes to be sure.
There is now a world in which Bennet receives supplemental punishment, misses a game or two, and still ends up the most pivotal player in the series.
For Toronto, this is a chance to prove that resilience they love to tell, and haven’t had much chance to show.
It was there on Monday night. That third period was a classic Leafs collapse moment waiting to happen. It didn’t happen.
Asked about how he’d seen the play on which Stolarz was hurt, Florida coach Paul Maurice said, “The referee was standing right there when it happened.”
That’s not a good answer. It’s a great answer. It’s the sort of glib rejoinder that will make people in Toronto apoplectic, which is when they’re weak.
It’s also classic Maurice. On a given playoff night, he is the Panthers’ most valuable contributor, and he only plays for five minutes after the game is over.
“A blow to the head,” Berube called it. “Clearly. Clearly. Clear as day.”
Asked if he liked his team’s response in the moment, Berube could not get started on an answer, which means the answer was ‘No’. You can feel pretty sure you know how Craig Berube the player would have responded, and it wouldn’t have had anything to do with winning the game.
Under repeated questioning about the incident, the Leafs coach got up abruptly, said his goodbyes and left.
It seems highly unlikely that Stolarz returns on Wednesday. The same may be true of Bennet. Then it’s game on.
Can Toronto win without their human rabbit’s foot in net? Can Woll recover from an iffy cameo?
These are hockey questions in what has already become a test of wills. The Leafs will want to continue to play a hockey series. Only their coach seemed to understand in the immediate aftermath of Monday night that they’re in a different sort of competition now. This is now a blood feud. Only one of these teams has real experience in those.
Whether they’d like to or not, this is Toronto’s chance to learn.