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Leafs Search For Killer Instinct, Look To Bury Playoff Ghosts With Bolts On The Brink
Joshua Clipperton, The Canadian PressPublished Wednesday, May 11, 2022 5:21PM EDTLast Updated Wednesday, May 11, 2022 5:21PM EDT 메이저사이트

TORONTO - Michael Bunting had one idea when Jason Spezza ventured to the first-break floor.

Tune in up.

The veteran forward's energetic words in the storage space helped flash a rebound after the Maple Leafs fell behind 2-0 from the get-go in Game 5 of their best-of-seven series against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

"A veteran in this association for quite a while," Bunting said. "He's an innovator in our room, and he's actual vocal. Everybody tuned in.

"It was an incredible discourse. He truly got the folks moving."

Toronto would thunder back for an emotional 4-3 triumph Tuesday that drove the double cross shielding Stanley Cup champions to the edge of disposal, and moved the Original Six establishment one triumph from progressing to the second round of the end of the season games interestingly beginning around 2004 heading into Thursday's Game 6 in Tampa.

"I adored the reaction," Spezza said Wednesday morning before the Leafs traveled south. "There was extraordinary franticness from the gathering. We perceived the circumstance.

"An extraordinary pushback."

Toronto presently faces a significantly stiffer test as it endeavors to unseat the champions in their lawn - looking down the apparitions of past season finisher disappointments.

This is another gathering, however there's stuff.

A center that incorporates Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander and Morgan Rielly has had seven chances to finish off series in their time in blue and white since first making the post-season in 2017.

They've come up snake eyes every one of the multiple times, remembering a staggering breakdown for the previous spring's first round in the wake of building a 3-1 lead on the Montreal Canadiens.

So might can-do attitude at any point be learned?

"It's all the more so the sensation of winning is infectious," Toronto lead trainer Sheldon Keefe said. "One is irresistible.

"We take a gander at the group that we're attempting to be and (the Lightning) have that, correct? That is brought them through to two season finisher runs and titles. That will make it substantially more challenging to follow through with the task. Yet, they likewise went through their own insight."

Spezza, who's in his nineteenth NHL season and made the Cup last in 2007 with the Ottawa Senators, said the Leafs need to demonstrate they have the stuff to overcome the first-round challenge.