There’s Always Next Year, Part 45

Well, that was fun while it lasted.

I fully expected to see at least one Leafs build up three goal lead, then blow three goal lead before losing probably in overtime game in this series. It’s Boston. that’s how it works. But if you told me that it would happen in game seven, I’d have thought you were crazy.

I’m not going to go down the they should have had this thing in the bag and they’re a bunch of losers for blowing it path. more than enough people will do that. Instead, I’m going to look at this as a hopeful sign for the future. I got so much more than I expected from this team. Not just in this series, but throughout the whole season, as much as you can call it a real season. This is a young team with a bright future, much brighter than it looked at the end of last year. If you had told me that a team that finished the way that one did would be in the playoffs a year from then, you’d have sounded crazier than the guy who said they’d make it to game seven against Boston.

I can point out several good things, but James Reimer stands out more than anything else. I didn’t understand the talk of having to go out and buy goaltending during the offseason or even as it started to look more and more like the playoffs were a possibility. Ok, maybe I’ll give you the offseason. Reimer was hit and miss (quite a bit of miss for a while), but I blame some of that on injuries and some of that on the way goalies had been handled up until this year. But the thought of trying to land Roberto Luongo at the deadline never made any sense to me. The Reimer Scrivens combo had gotten you this far, why not ride that thing as far as it’ll take you?

In the end that’s exactly what they did, and his performance during most of this series proves to me that James Reimer is special. Last night aside, if this is how he plays when he’s relatively young and inexperienced, I can’t wait to watch him mature. In time I think we could be mentioning him in the same breath as some of the great Leafs goaltenders in history.

Really, I can’t wait to watch this whole team, or at least as much of it as comes back next year, mature. Nobody expected a thing from them, and yet somehow before they ultimately caved they made thousands of Bruins fans who had presumably paid a hefty price for their game seven tickets give up hope and leave. If they can keep on this track, there’s no way we’re waiting another nine years for a playoff run.