Mitch Marner of the Toronto Maple Leafs makes a move around Ottawa Senators defenceman Johnny Oduya, to score on Craig Anderson in Ottawa on Saturday.Marc DesRosiers
Finally, the crowd had something to celebrate at Canadian Tire Centre.
It was only 7:26 into the first period when there was a scramble, a goaltender down and, suddenly, a puck in the back of a net.
The arena exploded.
"Go Leafs Go!
"Go Leafs Go!
"Go Leafs Go!
"Go Leafs …"
It was a bit like an Upside Down episode of Stranger Things in Ottawa on Saturday, as Hockey Day in Canada was celebrated with edition No. 115 in the sometimes-storied, sometimes-sorry Battle of Ontario.
The attendance woes of Ottawa were nowhere to be seen, the arena packed 400 beyond capacity with fans wearing the traditional blue of their beloveds.
Correct, blue. The Ottawa Senators wear red and black. They do, however, suffer from the blues this season, having come within an overtime goal of reaching the Stanley Cup final eight months ago and fallen to a current 29th place in the league.
From a franchise dreaming of a Stanley Cup parade down Bank Street, it has twisted into one where the owner berates its fans, where fans not calling for the head of the owner want the head of the general manager or the coach, or both – a place where, since December, there has been more trade talk than in the NAFTA negotiations.
When the visiting Leafs went ahead 1-0 early in the opening period on that goal by Zach Hyman off a goalmouth scramble, the visiting fans figured the game was in the bag.
"Go Leafs Go!"
The first period, after all, would be followed by a second period, and if the Ottawa Senators' woes during the 2017-18 season have been plentiful, they have been found more in second periods than anywhere else.
Heading into Saturday's game, the Senators had been outscored by opposing teams a head-shaking 65-36. It had reached a point where Ottawa head coach Guy Boucher was no longer calling his team's second-period play a problem, but "a disease."
But, as nothing has ever proved predictable in the years that there has been this on-again off-again Battle of Ontario, this second period would perhaps be the exception that proved the rule.
Suddenly the little team that couldn't, could. Captain Erik Karlsson scored on a rebound during a Senators' power play. Snake-bitten Mike Hoffman discovered an antidote four minutes later with a hard one-timer that beat Toronto goaltender Frederik Andersen. Tom Pyatt scored, almost unheard of in Ottawa, a shorthanded goal during a Toronto power play.
"Go Sens Go!
"Go Sens Go!
"Go Sens Go! …"
With the Senators up 3-1 after two periods and the previously stirring Leafs seemingly headed for a fifth successive loss, the quietest voice in the room spoke up. Patrick Marleau, in his 39th year, an Olympic gold-medal winner, world champion and 20 years a San Jose Shark, had seen enough of this erratic young Toronto team for which he was brought in to demonstrate composure.
"I didn't really tell them anything they didn't already know," Marleau whispered to reporters later.
"When Patrick Marleau steps up to say something in the locker room guys listen," said the team's 20-year-old star, Auston Matthews. "He's a pretty soft-spoken guy, but when he says something you have to listen up."
"Internal accountability," Toronto head coach Mike Babcock called it. "When you're a team with no expectation, there's none of that. There just isn't. As you create a real good team over time, the players take over that accountability thing. Sometimes it's not kind to one another, but it's real and living in the real world is important in our league."
The Senators had sought a little "internal accountability" themselves during a meeting with general manager Pierre Dorion that was described as "tense" – but in the end produced no concrete results. As Karlsson would say later, "The hockey's just not there."
Whatever Marleau said during that second-period intermission, it worked.
Less than three minutes into the third period, it was Matthews – who hadn't scored in Ottawa since his four-goal debut in the fall of 2016 – poking a rebound past Ottawa goaltender Craig Anderson to make it 3-2.
Less than two more minutes passed and the game was tied when another young Toronto star, Mitch Marner, also 20, made a beautiful move around Ottawa defenceman Johnny Oduya, held the puck and then flipped it over a helpless Anderson.
Another few minutes of play and what seemed a harmless point shot from defenceman Connor Carrick, aging at 23, found the back of the Ottawa net to make it Leafs 4, Ottawa 3.
"Go Leafs Go!
"Go Leafs Go!
"Go Leafs Go!
"Go Leafs …"
"A great comeback for us," Marner said. "Very exciting." He paused, then added almost as if he were standing in the lower corridors of the Air Canada Centre: "It's always a great atmosphere in here."
Outside the Canadian Tire Centre, waves of blue jerseys headed for the parking lots.
The fans were going home happy.
Even if, for many of them, home was several hours away.