After being embarrassed on home ice losing 6-1 to the hands of the Florida Panthers, the Maple Leafs would have a chance to send this series to a seventh game in Game 6.
The Leafs would have to put their best foot forward to fight off elimination against the reigning Stanley Cup Champions.
After making changes to the roster in game 5, Maple Leafs head coach Craig Berube would head back to his original lineup activating Calle Jarnkrok and Pontus Holmberg to the starting roster.
With Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner coming off one of their worst performances of the playoffs, Berube would decide to keep the two together to start game 6.
“These guys have been a combo for a long time and they’ve had a lot of success. So, I trust them, I believe in them,” Berube said doubling down on his two superstars that have been in a rut.
When the puck was dropped we were able to see a different Leafs team than the one that took the ice on Wednesday night in Toronto.
The Buds were doing exactly what they had to do to weather Florida’s storm and put a strong performance forward to start the game.
Although the Leafs started on the right foot, they would then take penalties back-to-back, looking like a familiar scene that was set in the first period of game 3.
Fortunately, Toronto was able to kill both keeping this game goalless.
After a positive first period, both teams would head into the intermission tied at zero apiece.
In the middle frame, the momentum would flip hard to the Cats as Florida took control of the game but Toronto Netminder Joseph Woll would be able to stop every puck that came his way keeping it a goalless game.
The Leafs would get some chances on the man advantage but Florida would win the special teams battle, giving Toronto no opportunity to even set up in the offensive zone.
Even with both teams getting multiple chances to break the ice, we would find ourselves heading to the final period of play tied 0-0.
In the third period, Toronto’s two big boys would come up clutch when they needed it the most as Marner would send a loose puck up to Matthews where he would be able to finally find the back of the net giving the Leafs a 1-0 lead.
That would be Matthew’s first goal in the second round of his career and for the Leafs, it couldn’t come at a better time.
It wouldn’t be too long for the Leafs to add to their lead as Bobby McMann would send a saucer pass to Max Pacioretty who would backhand it home past Sergei Bobrovsky making it a two-goal game.
Florida would not go away yet as they would still try to push and equalize with the net empty, but the Leafs’ defense and goaltending would come up strong closing the game out and sending this series to a game 7 in Toronto.
Woll would pitch his first playoff shutout stopping 22 shots that came his way.
Yes, Toronto’s defense and goaltending would be the main reason that this series will head to seven, but it is nice to finally see 16 and 34 come up big when it matted the most.
Matthews would have a chance to speak to the media after the game talking about his team’s performance in game 6.
“Really proud of all the guys in the room from top to bottom,” Matthews said.
Even with this win, Toronto’s job is not yet finished as the seventh game in a playoff series has not been on the nice list for the Maple Leafs in the Matthews era.
The Maple Leafs are currently 0-5 in game 7’s through the past nine years, so hopefully they can finally get it done and add a number one in front of the five to that statistic. 
“There’s a lot on the line. Everything’s on the line,” Berube said talking about Game 7.
The Buds will try to break the game 7 curse on Sunday, against the Panthers, or will past demons reign supreme once again?
