Instant Reaction: Maple Leafs honour Joe Bowen with the most Maple Leafs win you’ll see
Facing a Chicago Blackhawks team without superstar Connor Bedard, the Leafs went down 2-0 (could have been 3-0 if not for a disallowed goal) and looked like they had no life whatsoever. Chicago was stopping them in the neutral zone with the same ease of taking candy from a baby and they were generating absolutely nothing in the offensive zone. Auston Matthews, at one point in the early stage of the third period, had 12 seconds of time with the puck in the offensive zone. Craig Berube was heated and caught on camera screaming at his bench more than once, and even after Oliver Ekman-Larsson scored halfway through the third to cut the deficit to one, the Leafs continued to struggle to generate anything.
And then the Blackhawks took a penalty with four minutes left. And then Auston Matthews scored to tie the game. And then Dakota Joshua scored to take the lead eight seconds later.
What else can you do besides acknowledge the fact that this was objectively the funniest possible outcome of this game. On a day where Joe Bowen, who has been to hell and back with this team and has sat through nearly all of the good, the bad, and the ugly to come with it, the Maple Leafs delivered a win that had their fans seething for about 90% of it. It’s tremendously fitting, no?
In the end, there is no way that Craig Berube will be happy with the process that led to this win, but at least they picked up two points for Joe.