No Matthews, no problem as Knies salvages Maple Leafs season in OT

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We interrupt this teardown of the Maple Leafs to bring you a Game 6 in Toronto.

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Yes, it might be just postponing the inevitable, but few Leaf teams have gone into an elimination road game with slimmer odds and lived to fight another day. Never mind that some Scotiabank Arena employees were exchanging their summer goodbye hugs after Game 4 and told to take home any personal items as the hammers were ready to swing on the $350 million off-season renovations.

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Still alive and trailing just 3-2 in the best of seven, why not think the Leafs could force it back to Boston again on Saturday, if for no other reason than to stir the bean pot. Now it’s Boston feeling the heat, having let a 3-1 series lead on underdog Florida get away last year and continuing their puzzling streak of four letdowns the past Game 5s.

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Tuesday’s welcome 2-1 overtimne win came on an auspicious anniversary for Toronto club president Brendan Shanahan, eight years to the day he was sequestered with other non-playoff GMs at the draft lottery in Toronto. The right numbers came up for the last-place Leafs, who got Auston Matthews as crown jewel for their eventual Core Four.

Matthews was not in Game 5 because of his mystery ailment — evidently not a viral-like illness, rather some form of physical soreness — but fellow Arizonan Matthew Knies bought the 69-goal scorer more time to get healthy.

The rest of the Core Four picked up Matthews, the team’s overall record now 36-19-2 without him, though Knies did a pretty good impression after Matthews had won Game 2.

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Mitch Marner, with the weight of the world on him after those Game 4 theatrics, assisted on Jake McCabe’s first goal, and skated free and easy again. Nylander, more comfy in his second game back in the series from his own undisclosed issues, had a partial breakaway pass from Joel Edmundson out of the penalty box and struck iron. The Bruins were unable to track him on a couple of his open ice sashays in their zone.

John Tavares missed some scoring chances, but crashed into everything black and gold and drove the net to assist on Knies’s winner.

Now to flip the script at SBA on Thursday in a series where home ice is becoming a moot point.

“We’ve got (Boston’s) attention again,” said coach Sheldon Keefe, relieved not to be discussing his future after a loss. “We haven’t been good at home, but we’ve earned another opportunity to fix that.”

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LOOSE LEAFS

The last overtime goal by a Maple Leafs player in Boston? Way back to Jim Harrison on April 6, 1972 at the old Garden in Toronto’s only win in that quarterfinal … Two straight playoff wins in Boston? Not since the Leafs’ last series win over them in 1959 … Woll took a hard shot off the mask but played through it, where Ilya Samsonov thought it better to toss his aside and get a whistle … Yes, that was Brad Marchand in the penalty box for the first time in the series, consecutive minors with Pontus Holmberg. Perhaps Keefe’s Game 3 rant about how the Bruins captain gets away with subterfuge made an impression on the officials.

Lhornby@postmedia.com

X: @sunhornby

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