When it comes to the Boston Bruins and Toronto Maple Leafs meeting in the playoffs, it's great theater. They have put on some great series, but when the dust settles, it usually ends with the two teams shaking hands at center ice and the Bruins getting ready for the next round of the playoffs and the Maple Leafs heading home for the summer.
However, there have been some tremendous endings to some series, with the most recent being in 2024. After blowing a 3-1 series lead, Boston fell behind 1-0 in the third period of Game 7 at the TD Garden before they tied the game to force overtime, and David Pastrnak won it in the extra period. What happened 11 years earlier will go down as maybe the most painful loss in Toronto franchise history.
Revisiting Bruins' epic 2013 playoff comeback vs. Maple Leafs
After splitting the first two games in Boston, the Bruins won both games in Toronto for a commanding 3-1 series lead. The Maple Leafs picked up a 2-1 Game 5 win in Boston before they forced a Game 7 with a 2-1 win at home in Game 6. Sound familiar?
In Game 7, Toronto fell behind 1-0, but scored four straight goals for a commanding 4-1 that was capped off by a Nazem Kadri goal with 14:31 remaining in the game. That should have been enough to advance. Should have been.
Nathan Horton scored with just over 10 minutes left to cut the deficit to 4-2. It stayed that way until Milan Lucic scored off a rebound to make it a 4-3 game with 1:22 left. Thirty-one seconds later, Patrice Bergeron tied the game at 4-4 when he beat James Reimer. Then, in overtime, Bergeron completed the epic comeback by scoring the series-winning goal.
"Anything can happen," Lucic said after the game, "and that's exactly what happened."
It was a comeback that will remain in Bruins lore for a long, long time. What might get lost in teh shuffle is what happened the night before. Games 6 and 7 were played on back-to-back nights. As Boston was playing Game 6, they found out that their plane had mechanical issues, and they spent the night in Toronto. They flew back just hours before Game 7. Talk about resiliency. Flying in the day- I mean, hours- before Game 7, and then having the win they had is unheard of.
When it comes to Bruins/Maple Leafs playoff hockey, there really isn't much better across the league in terms of a long series. Boston went on to dispatch the New York Rangers in five games before taking down the Pittsburgh Penguins in four games in the Eastern Conference Final. They would lose in six games to the Chicago Blackhawks in the Stanley Cup Final, but if it wasn't for an epic comeback in Game 7 against Toronto, they wouldn't have been there.
Add us as a preferred source on Google