TORONTO — Amid a campaign that’s been all chaos and comebacks and roller-coaster momentum swings, it was precisely the type of finish the Toronto Maple Leafs faithful have come to expect.
Saturday night, under the Scotiabank Arena lights, the home side waded into the third period of a wild outing against the Boston Bruins, trailing the visitors 4-3. Neither club had offered up a particularly glorious effort to that point, the pair of them stringing together no shortage of bobbled pucks, ill-fated passes, and wobbly giveaways. But as the clock wound down to the final five minutes of the tilt, Toronto seemed to pull out yet another last-gasp comeback.
It started with a faceoff won deep in Boston’s zone. The puck came to William Nylander, he of an eight-game point streak already extended to nine with an assist on a Maple Leafs’ power-play marker a period earlier. No. 88 cut to the slot, fired wide, and saw the puck land back on his stick — he fired again, this time seemingly drifting a shot just past Bruins netminder Jeremy Swayman.
The crowd exploded, Nylander threw his hands in the air, celebratory spotlights hit the ice — until everyone in the building noticed the official in the corner signalling ‘no goal.’
Play continued, both benches looking perplexed. Eventually, a replay flashed across the jumbotron showing Nylander’s potentially game-tying shot hitting the crossbar, then the post, then Swayman’s leg, before finally bouncing into the corner.
“It looked like it [was in],” Bruins head coach Marco Sturm said with a chuckle post-game. “And the crowd went nuts, too — I was like, ‘Uh oh.’"
“I just saw the ref point ‘no goal,’ so I just kept playing,” Swayman said. “Luckily, we got a good bounce there.”
A minute later, the game swung back in Boston’s favour when ex-Maple Leaf Fraser Minten — traded to Boston at last season’s deadline in the deal that brought defenceman Brandon Carlo to Toronto — hopped over the boards.
With the Maple Leafs pushing again after seeing their tying effort nullified, Minten picked up the puck in the Bruins’ zone, carried it up ice, and wired it around the boards behind Dennis Hildeby. It came to Steven Lorentz near Toronto’s bench — the winger one-touched it back into the Leafs’ zone, trying to find a teammate, instead finding Boston’s Mark Kastelic.
The Bruins centreman dashed into the slot, floated a puck past Morgan Rielly, and saw it land on Minten’s stick. He collected it, waited, and wired one past a sprawling Hildeby from one knee.
5-3. Clock winding down. Game iced, and Nylander’s near-goal a distant memory.
The kid dropped to one knee again in celebration, before swinging back to his bench, a wide grin plastered on his face. Asked post-game how it felt to score that one against the club that traded him away eight months ago, Minten didn’t mince words.
“As good as it can,” he said from the visitor’s locker room. “Very good.”
So too did a win that gave the Bruins their sixth straight victory, and cut short a win streak for the rival Leafs.
“That’s a huge win for us,” Minten said. “Toronto’s a really good team, and they’ve been playing really good recently. We’re missing our best defenceman. … I thought we did a really good job.”
The 2022 second-round pick was no small part of the reason why. And for those sharing a bench with him, it was no mystery how much it meant to No. 93 to pot that Saturday-night revenge tally, and swing the game back in Boston’s favour.
“You could see it in his celebration,” Sturm said with a smile.
“We were really happy for him,” said Michael Eyssimont, who scored a go-ahead goal for Boston himself in the second. “You know, two very storied franchises, and he played for both of them. We got him, so we’re really happy about that.”
For Sturm, the young centreman’s impact went beyond the one crowd-silencing play. It was the full breadth of Minten’s performance on the night that had his coach smiling in the bowels of Scotiabank Arena post-game.
“I thought he was the best player on the ice, to be honest,” Sturm said. “He was just very, very calm. The little details he had — he was ready to go. He wanted to be out there.
“For me, that’s impressive, because a lot of the young kids, they don’t — especially in a tight game, and you got traded from that team. I loved his game today.”
The goal against his former club gives Minten his fifth point in his past seven games for the B’s, and a career-high six points in 17 games at the big-league level this season. But uptick in production aside, it’s more situations like the one he found himself in Saturday that the 21-year-old is truly aiming at — trusted with a chance to make a big play, in a big moment, with the game on the line.
“That’s my goal as a player,” he said. “I’m a competitive guy. I want to be out there playing. So, continuing to build on that, earn that trust, earn those minutes, that’s why I play the game.”
