TORONTO — The Florida Panthers have developed a philosophy heading into these gruelling playoff rounds that has served them pretty well, considering they’ve won eight of their past nine series.
And the Toronto Maple Leafs have snatched the champions’ philosophy, just like they swooped up Anthony Stolarz, Oliver Ekman-Larsson, and Steven Lorentz fresh off the parade.
Before the puck drops on Game 1, assume the series will go seven.
What a brilliant thought exercise.
It tricks the mind into smoothing the dips and dives of the two-week roller coaster.
So, if you’re the Panthers, and you dig yourself a 1-3 to the Presidents’ Trophy–winning Boston Bruins in 2023, you steel yourself for the rally. And if you blow a commanding 3-0 lead to the 2024 Edmonton Oilers, well, it was always destined for a best-of-one anyway. Might as well go win the first Stanley Cup in franchise history.
And if you’re these something-feels-different Maple Leafs, you don’t lose the plot when a 3-0 series lead over the Ottawa Senators narrows to 3-2. You take care of business the next night because, hey, we convinced ourselves this was always going to be a long series.
And when you submit a panic-inducing performance in Game 5 at home the following round and watch your 2-0 lead disintegrate to a 2-3 deficit, you don’t panic because this was always fated for seven. You hop a charter to Florida and fulfill the self-prophecy.
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The Game 7 Theory isn’t just a mindset hack, though.
It’s tactical, practical.
While it would be inhuman to mimic the intensity of a winner-take-all match on a Thursday in November or even in a Game 3 in April, experienced coaches like Paul Maurice (5-0 in Game 7s, including the biggie) and Craig Berube (2-1, including the biggie) can install a Game 7-like system and identity in September.
Straight lines, no risk, punishing forechecks, five-man defence, discipline, physicality.
Wear and tear them up.
The tightness of Game 6, in which the hard-to-find slot shots favoured Toronto 5-3, should continue.
The last thing a coach should do after Game 6 wraps is introduce a fresh idea or overthink the chess match. His players should already have that Game 7 mindset drilled into them by now.
“The Game 7 idea is something we talk about before every series. We talk about it in the regular season, as a matter of fact. The style of play that leads to a Game 7 is where we want to get to,” Maurice explained to reporters in Fort Lauderdale Saturday, before the teams flew to Toronto for Sunday’s showdown.
“You want to have talked about your game enough all year so that everybody understands the game that you’re going to try to play.”
Wait. So… you want the series to go seven?
No. That would be a lie.
But what we want and what we prepare for are different animals.
“You want to win in four. You do. One hundred per cent. But the Game 7s, you’ll remember. There’s not a lot of them. The further into the playoffs, the more intense they are,” Maurice continued.
“There’s a freedom in Game 7s that’s not anywhere else. On both teams, you’ve got guys dealing with stuff. Physical stuff. And they will say: ‘I just gotta play one more game.’ If they get to play one more game after that, they’ll deal with that then. But in the moment, in the warmup, whatever they’re dealing with becomes more mentally manageable. So, everybody goes, and everybody goes hard.”
(Which is why we’re working on the assumption that both Toronto’s Matthew Knies and Florida’s Evan Rodrigues will suit up, regardless of pain levels. Berube did not update Knies’s condition Saturday morning, but he’s too valuable to sit if he wants to go.)
“Both these teams have kinda earned it, right?” Maurice says. “They’ve earned the right to go as flat-out as they can and enjoy the process of it.”
Florida earned it with a three-game win streak that peaked with an embarrassing of the Maple Leafs’ superstars in their own barn. Toronto earned it by responding to Game 5’s potentially demoralizing defeat with a Game 6 gem, as well as thriving in spite of Game 1’s controversial headshot to Stolarz, which removed the goalie from the series.
The road to Game 7 makes those kinda corny sporting taglines — Pressure Is a Privilege; No Grit, No Grind, No Greatness — ring true.
“That’s playoff hockey,” says Sam Reinhart, author of the most recent Stanley Cup–winning Game 7 goal. “You lose a game, going to bed that night, it feels like the world is ending. Then you wake up and get back it.
“From going through (Game 7s) together countless times, it’s comforting. You know what you’re going to expect out of the guy next to you — and that’s his best at a time like this. We’re excited for another opportunity to play in another big game like this.”
Matthew Tkachuk adds: “You gain experience through the runs, the years. Seems like we always play in a big Game 7 every year. Maybe this is that game.”
Seems like the Maple Leafs do, too.
Though theirs are decidedly, uh, less celebrated.
As a franchise, the Leafs are seeking their first Game 7 victory since the 2004 conference quarterfinals against Ottawa.
Toronto’s core of Auston Matthews, Mitch Marner, William Nylander, and Morgan Rielly is 0-5 in Game 7. The Bruins got them in 2018, 2019, and 2024; the Canadiens in 2021; and the Lightning in 2022. In 2020, they stretched a best-of-five versus Columbus to the max and lost that game too.
Three of those crushing defeats went down at Scotiabank Arena, which will be nervous and giddy, loud and expensive all at once come Sunday night at 7:30 p.m.
Packed with pressure and people and popcorn.
“It’s exciting. We did our job here, and we still have a job to do,” local boy Scott Laughton told reporters in Florida before the boarding a plane to the unknown.
“Game 7, at home, in Toronto — it’s pretty electric.”
“They’re fun. I think it means a lot to everybody,” says Berube, who also suited up for three Game 7s as a player. “All the people that I knew growing up, they always dreamed about a Game 7. They’re big games, obviously, and lot on the line. I mean, everything’s on the line.
“We gotta come out in Game 7 and do the same things we did (in Game 6). It’s not fancy. It’s just competing. It’s being direct. It’s simple hockey.”
To summon that urgency, Berube simply wants his charges to relax Saturday through to puck drop. Conserve their energy, then splay it all over the ice.
The coach admits it will be “a little bit painful” to wait around Sunday, antsy for the puck to drop. But? “As the head coach, it’s important to stay calm and keep your players directed in the same way,” he says.
Naturally, a few pre-game naps could get restless.
“We grow up dreaming of Game 7s,” Aaron Ekblad says. “Yes, we feel the pressure, obviously. But the motivation and the pride that you have coming to the rink excited to play, it’s second to none.
“It’s a full-body tingling experience when you get onto the ice for the first time. Home or away, the crowd is going absolutely bananas. You feed off that energy. It’s exciting.”
Toronto’s Bobby McMann, who set up Max Pacioretty’s insurance goal Friday, is one of the few in these veteran rooms who has never played a Game 7. He’s been told that watching, which is what he was forced to do last May in Boston, is more agonizing than playing.
“That’s kinda what you live for,” McMann says. “You want something on the line. You want to play for something.”
Maurice will happily wax on about the significance and scintillation of Game 7. He savours them, even though — truth serum — he’d have preferred not to pack a suitcase after Game 6.
“As you get older, you enjoy the more unusual events of your life. You’re more aware of them. So, Game 7 is cool,” Maurice says.
“You don’t need a lot of extra coffee. You’ll be ready to go.”
Jeez, we’re ready already.
After all, we always knew this sucker was going seven.
“Game 7 can really go either way,” Reinhart reminds.
Hence the magic… and the terror.
