The Toronto Maple Leafs are returning to the scene of their biggest postseason moment of the past 19 years.
When the Maple Leafs walk into Amalie Arena for their game against the host Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday (7 p.m. ET; BSSUN, NHLN, SNW, SNO, CBC), it will be 175 days since John Tavares’ heroics on that same ice surface on April 29 helped the franchise to its first Stanley Cup Playoff series victory since 2004.
Tavares’ shot, aimed at the front of the Lightning net, where teammate Morgan Rielly was standing, deflected off the skate of defenseman 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 the best-of-7 Eastern Conference First Round.
“When you look back at last year, you want to look at the good and the bad, it was an important step for us, one which we hadn’t been on the right side of,” Tavares, the Toronto captain, said this week.
“To do that, it was always a good feeling. It was a chance for us to come together and learn what it takes against a team as accomplished as Tampa.
“I think there’s only positives that can come from that.”
It had been 6,948 days since the Maple Leafs had won a postseason series, that one coming when they eliminated the Ottawa Senators in the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals. In that time, Toronto went through six general managers, seven coaches, 268 skaters and 33 goalies.
Since 2016 the Maple Leafs had lost six consecutive playoff series. Rielly, Auston 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, thanks in part to Tavares.
But the euphoria of what Matthews at the time called “a big monkey off our backs” didn’t last long. Less than two weeks later they were eliminated by the Florida Panthers in the second round.
“It changes quickly,” Marner said. “We’re looking ahead, not back.”
Standing in their immediate way: A Lightning team seeking retribution against the team that handed them their first opening-round elimination since 2019.
Toronto (2-2-0) comes in having lost two straight, including a 3-1 loss to Florida on Thursday. If the Maple Leafs were looking for revenge against the Panthers for shoving them out of the playoffs, they fell short.
On that same night, the Lightning (2-2-1) defeated the Vancouver Canucks 4-3 to end an 0-2-1 skid, setting the stage for the showdown against the Maple Leafs on "Hockey Night in Canada."
"Going back to the playoffs last year, it was a spirited series,” Tampa Bay forward Tanner Jeannot said. “We felt that we played them hard.
“Coming in, you remember that feeling of getting knocked out early. A lot of guys remember that feeling and they're going to be bringing a lot of passion to that game."
The teams met in the playoffs the past two seasons, each winning once. Tampa Bay eliminated Toronto in seven games in the first round in 2022, one year before the Maple Leafs turned the tables on the Lightning.
"I do think there's a bit of a budding [rivalry] between the two of us just from the simple fact that when you play teams in the playoffs multiple years in a row, there's a little fire in both teams,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It was a long summer for us for sure and a little bit shorter for them, but not by much. So, I think it's two teams that want to get back to where they were. And with the teams in the division that are chasing us, all of a sudden these games become a little more magnified.
“Anytime Toronto and Tampa get together, they're fun games, so it should be good."
NHL.com independent correspondent Corey Long contributed to this report
