#2. Qualifying Series – Game 3 vs. Columbus Blue Jackets
Let me take you back to my experience of this game. It was a beautiful summer’s night. I’d just finished playing nine holes after work with some buddies and was pumped to watch the Leafs try for back-to-back wins.
Two nights prior, the Leafs had dominated the Blue Jackets and played one of their best all-around games of the season. From start to finish, Toronto looked like the team we’d hope for them to be. Obviously the Muzzin injury at the end of that game was scary, but we all hoped the team would rally around that and win it for him.
Anyways, back to my story. I’d made my way down to watch the game at the Drive-In. That’s the last place I’d ever imagined watching a meaningful Leafs playoff game, but here we were on a great night to watch the Bud’s. Even though I’m jammed in the backseat, the night is perfect. Midway through the game, Toronto was up 3-0 and Nick Robertson had scored his first career NHL goal in his debut game. What a moment and what a night this was going to be.
Columbus gets a goal a few minutes later but it’s still 3-1 heading into the third with the game in control. Earlier in the day, NHL 21 had put a Tweet out that I thought was a joke, but they ran a simulation for the game and the result was that the Leafs would go up 3-0 and lose 4-3 in OT. I’d ignored this thought most of the game, but it was lingering in the back of my head as the third period came around. With my neck sideways, and starting to hurt from watching the game from the back seat, that tweet became a reality.
Seth Jones gets one to make it 3-2, then Pierre-Luc Dubois scores his second of the game and it’s all tied up. 3-3 and we’re heading to OT. The period drags on and I start to think: “Am I going to sleep in this car tonight? Do I leave at the intermission and try to make it home for the start of the second overtime period?”
I wouldn’t have to actually do any of those things, because right as I was deciding my next step, Dubois shut every Leafs fan up that was honking their horn earlier and ended the game: 4-3, Blue Jackets. A hat-trick goal by the 22-year-old and Columbus was up 2-1 in the series.
No hats were thrown on the ice and there were no celebrations in the stands. Instead, there was a quiet ride home, knowing that the Leafs season would be over in a matter of days.