I am only now able to continue watching the NHL Playoffs after a week-long hiatus. We needed time apart. It wasn’t them, it was me. For the first time in almost a decade of horrendous hockey, they had me believe. Then in typical fashion, they broke my heart.
The feeling was palpable in Toronto as the Leaf’s rising star, Nazem Kadri put the Buds up 4-1 with a little over half a period to play. Celebrations began in homes, bars and in the square beside the Air Canada Centre to watch the game.
Then the unimaginable happened. Even if you’re not a Leafs fan, you know what happened. No team had ever collapsed like that during a playoff game. If you watched it, you witnessed history.
The meltdown in Massachusetts overshadowed the positives of the brief 2013 season. James Reimer asserted himself as the clear-cut solution to Toronto’s goaltending issues. The aforementioned Kadri sizzled in March, culminating with a kiss from Don Cherry. Dion Phaneuf played like a top-pairing defenseman and Phil Kessel proved that he can score when it counts, and more importantly, he can score against his old team, the Bruins.
Many others proved their detractors wrong. James Van Reimsdyk was Brian Burke’s last move as General Manager, and was a warrior during the playoffs scoring a point-per-game pace. Cody Franson was an offensive force to be reckoned with, ending up in the top-ten list of scoring defensemen. Jay McClement seemed to single-handedly change the fortunes of the Leafs penalty kill, taking them from one of the league’s worst, to one of the best.
Very few people picked the Leafs to even make the playoffs. Inexperienced goaltending and an unproven defence core stood out as issues that needed to be addressed before significant progress was to be made. But in spite of these flaws, they made it, and finally ended the nine-year post-season drought they were mocked so often for.
The players themselves, however, have looked at it as a learning experience; an important part in their growth, which they can draw off of the next time. “You look at all those superhero movies,” James Reimer said in an interview. “You don’t start out being the best, they usually fall down and get back up. There’s a reason for that, it mimics life a lot.”