NHL: 30 best series winning goals in NHL Playoffs history

NHL: 30 best series-winning goals in NHL playoff history:
5. Patrice Bergeron beats the Maple Leafs

There are two ways to look at pain. Some consider pain weakness leaving the body. However, for Toronto Maple Leafs fans, pain is a right of passage. Pain is what you sign up for when you agree to root for the NHL team in Canada’s top city. This series was exactly that, pain.

It takes a lot of pain for a first-round series to make it all the way into the top five of greatest series-winning goals of all time. It’s hard to think of a more painful moment for any fanbase. The Toronto Maple Leafs scored two goals in the third period to give themselves a 4-1 lead with 14 minutes left in the game. The Boston Bruins were on the ropes, and the Maple Leafs were ready to finally live up to its expectations.

Then came pain. Nathan Horton scored the first one four minutes later. That’s fine, it’s still 4-2. Less than two minutes left, and Milan Lucic scored to cut the lead to one. Seemed very unlikely a team could score two goals in the final two minutes of the game, but things were getting stressful. Less than a minute later, the unthinkable happened. Patrice Bergeron scored with 51 seconds left in the game to tie it up and force overtime.

In overtime, it didn’t get better for the Leafs. Joffrey Lupul did have a chance, and James Reimer made a few nice saves, but it was one sequence where it seemed like every Maple Leafs’ player lost track of the puck, and before they knew it, it was over.

Reimer thought it was in front of him, so he sat on the ground. Once he realized it wasn’t, all he could do was dive and try to save the Maple Leafs’ season. Bergeron was not going to miss from there, and the Bruins were alive and the Leafs, just like every other year, were dead.