Maple Leafs beat Ottawa 4-2 in Game 6 to advance to second round of playoffs

A William Nylander empty-netter sealed the deal as the Toronto Maple Leafs exorcised their playoff demons by eliminating the Ottawa Senators with a nail-biting 4-2 win in Game 6 on Thursday, advancing to the second round of the playoffs.

The persistent Senators managed to claw their way back from a 2-0 deficit to tie the game 2-2 in the third, but a goal by Max Pacioretty, assisted by Max Domi, put the Buds up 3-2 and Nylander closed the show with an empty net goal.

Pacioretty went from healthy scratch, to scratching Leafs Nation’s considerable playoff itch when he netted the game-winner with a wrist shot late in the third.

His goal came moments after Ottawa’s David Perron banked one off the back of Leafs goalie Anthony Stolarz to tie the game at 2-2, sending the hometown crowd into a frenzy.

The frenzy was tempered, however, when Pacioretty beat Linus Ullmark with less than six minutes remaining in regulation.

But the Sens hardly packed it in. They threw everything they had at the Leafs in the dying moments searching for the equalizer, but the Buds held on before Nylander put the game out of reach with his second goal of the game.

“It’s devastating,” said an emotional Senators’ captain Brady Tkachuk after the game. “It’s a tough pill to swallow right now.”

“Everything happens for a reason and we’ll be better because of it.”

The Leafs held a commanding 3-0 lead in the best-of-seven series, but saw the determined Senators fight back with two straight wins to make it a series and plant a seed of doubt in long-suffering Leafs fans.

Leafs Captain Auston Matthews, who scored the game’s first goal on the power play, said that doubt didn’t permeate the locker room.

“It feels great, we came into this game with a lot of noise on the outside, but just a belief in this group in the room,” he said after the win. “The belief in one another to just go out and play shift by shift.”

“It’s a big game tonight, we’ll just keep moving forward.”

“It feels good to get this one and on to the next,” Matthews said.

The always-tough Florida Panthers, featuring ex-Bruin and Leafs nemesis Brad Marchand, now await the Leafs after they defeated Tampa Bay in their first-round clash.