Maple Leafs get 'huge monkey off our backs,' win East 1st-Round series

TAMPA -- John Tavares had dreamed about moments like this since he was a kid who slept in Toronto Maple Leafs pajamas every night.

About playing for his hometown team. About being a hero for the franchise he'd grown up cheering for. About justifying leaving the New York Islanders as a free agent and signing a seven-year, $77 million contract with the Maple Leafs on July 1, 2018 so he could come home.
Unfortunately, his first four postseason series with Toronto were more of a nightmare, each one ending in a gut-wrenching loss in a deciding game. This wasn't what the veteran forward had envisioned.
Then, with one flick of his wrists Saturday, all that changed.
"I just said, "You know, let's just put it to the net and see what happens," the 32-year-old said.
RELATED: [Complete Maple Leafs vs. Lightning series coverage]
What happened was the biggest goal for a beleaguered Maple Leafs franchise in almost two decades.
Tavares' shot, aimed at the front of the Tampa Bay Lightning net where teammate Morgan Rielly was standing, deflected off the skate of defender Darren Raddysh and past goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy at 4:36 of overtime to give the Maple Leafs a
2-1 victory in Game 6
and a 4-2 series win in their best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round.
"That," said Maple Leafs forward Auston Matthews, "was a huge monkey off our backs."
More like King Kong.
Toronto will now play either the Florida Panthers or Boston Bruins in the Eastern Conference Second Round. Those teams play Game 7 in Boston on Sunday.
It's been a long, torturous ride for the Maple Leafs to get here. Consider the circumstances.

It had been 6,948 days since Toronto had won a postseason series, that one coming when they eliminated the Ottawa Senators in an Eastern Conference Quarterfinal in 2004. In that time, the Maple Leafs went through six general managers, seven coaches, 268 skaters and 33 goalies.
Since 2016, Toronto had lost six consecutive playoff series. Rielly, Matthews, Mitchell Marner and William Nylander were all part of those. Ten times in that span they'd had chances to eliminate an opponent and advance. Ten times they failed.
Then the narrative changed Monday, thanks in part to Tavares.
When the puck slid over the goal line at Amalie Arena, all of the failures of the past 19 years were forgotten. Tavares' teammates swarmed him. Coach Sheldon Keefe, caught in the euphoria of the moment, blacked out from emotion. The screams of jubilation from the hundreds of boisterous Maple Leafs fans echoed throughout the otherwise silent area.
Meanwhile, back home in Toronto, thousands of giddy supporters poured into the streets, waving flags and causing massive delays in public transit.
An overreaction? Not when an entire hockey-crazed city had suffered such anguish, such disappointment, such pain year after year. An entire generation of fans had never seen this team win a series, let alone a Stanley Cup. Now they had. This was their moment to turn frustration into celebration, and they were going to make the most of it.
It was a public reaction that Tavares, nicknamed "Johnny Toronto" by Maple Leafs Hall of Fame broadcaster Joe Bowen, could understand.
"Obviously special being a Maple Leaf and having the opportunity to play for the club," he said. "Obviously growing up in the GTA (Greater Toronto area), you get a sense of the history and the tradition and what it means to the city, to the people, and how big and incredible Leafs nation is. Really fortunate to compete for the club.
"To get a big win here tonight is really nice, especially with some of the disappointments we've had and how much support we've had over the years and the belief in the club we've had from our fanbase. Just a [heck] of a job by the guys of staying with it and not being denied today."

It wasn't easy. At times in this series the Lightning forecheck was dominant and resulted in significant offensive zone time for Tampa Bay. And when they thumped the Maple Leafs 7-3 in Game 1 at Air Canada Centre, the narrative in Toronto became "Here we go again."
But this time it was different. Keefe said it throughout the series about the vibe, the composure, the feel of his team.
In the end, the difference was that this edition answered the challenge. And whenever a big moment came, they rose to the occasion, unlike so many previous times.
That was never more underscored than how they played in Tampa. The Maple Leafs won all three games at Amalie Arena, each one in overtime. In past seasons, that never happened, whether it be because of a lull, because of a mistake, or because of a bad bounce.
This time, the bounce went their way.
In the victorious dressing room, there were screams of joy. Co-owner Larry Tanenbaum couldn't wipe the smile off his face. Wayne Simmonds, the imposing 6-foot-2, 184 pound forward who'd been a healthy scratch, came prancing down the hallway screaming and hollering. They'd all waited so long for this moment. And now it was here.
There were so many heroes for the Maple Leafs in this series. Tavares, of course. There was Matthews, who opened the scoring at 13:47 of the second period and led Toronto in goals in the series with five. There was Rielly, the longest-tenured player on the team (2013) who had eight points (three goals, five assists). And don't forget goalie Ilya Samsonov, who made 31 saves and could hardly formulate answers to reporters afterward because of his exhaustion.
And then there was Marner, who led the team in scoring in the series with 11 points (two goals, nine assists). Like Tavares, the 25-year-old who grew up in the Toronto area as an avid Maple Leafs fan who gobbled up every morsel of information about the team he could find, including the history. In fact, he wore No. 93 with London of the Ontario Hockey League in honor of Toronto icon Doug Gilmour, who played his final game with the Maple Leafs in 1997, a year before Marner was born.
On a night of special moments, the big picture was not lost on the Toronto forward.
"Crazy, man," Marner said. "I had a pretty good sight of [the goal] the whole time. The whole celebration, I was kind of in front of Johnny, both kids that grew up in the area and wanted to do something special for this team.
"A special moment."
For a team. For a fanbase. And for a city that had waited almost two decades for it.