TORONTO — There were no last-minute heroics this time.
The Columbus Blue Jackets got an early lead, put up a wall around Joonas Korpisalo and finished off the Toronto Maple Leafs with a 3-0 victory on Sunday night.
The Blue Jackets move on to face Tampa in Round 1 while another Leafs season ends without a series victory.
Give credit to Korpisalo, who had two shutouts in the best-of-five qualifying round. He made 33 saves in the clincher and heard a couple pucks strike iron behind him.
Playing for the third time in four nights, the high-powered Leafs offence finally succumbed to the suffocating Columbus system. They erased a 3-0 deficit inside the final four minutes on Friday night before winning in overtime.
Sheldon Keefe kept his top three offensive threats together on a line for Game 5 and saw Auston Matthews, John Tavares and Mitch Marner do everything but score through 40 minutes. Tavares had the most dangerous looks, hitting a goal post with a yawning cage and getting
denied in close by Korpisalo on a couple occasions.
The only problem with that strategy is Toronto couldn’t generate much behind them.
The Blue Jackets were opportunistic, grabbing a 1-0 lead on a Zach Werenski wrist shot that ricocheted off Tyson Barrie and past Frederik Andersen at 6:29 of the first period. The back-breaker came from teenager Liam Foudy with less than nine minutes to play, when
he beat Andersen through the legs from a sharp angle.
Toronto pulled its goaltender but couldn’t summon another miracle, seeing Nick Foligno skate the puck into an empty net.
