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OTTAWA -- Matt Stajan was holding court with a few reporters last night when a loud whoop went up from a room across the hall at Scotiabank Place.
"Looks like we just got some help," Stajan said, referring to the happy hollering that came from his teammates, who watched as the Montreal Canadiens beat the Boston Bruins in a shootout.
While that's true -- the Maple Leafs gained another point to move four behind the Philadelphia Flyers and Bruins for the final playoff spot in the Eastern Conference -- the Toronto players continue to get the most help from themselves.
In another big step toward kicking improbability to the curb, the Leafs erased a two-goal deficit against the Ottawa Senators and recorded a 5-4 victory in a rollicking game that had all the hallmarks of a playoff game except for the date.
The Leafs are 12-4-1 in their past 17 games and completed a three-game road sweep with their fourth win in a row against the Senators. There was no trace of the injured Mats Sundin, Nik Antropov or Carlo Colaiacovo on the bench, but there was plenty of heart.
An invitation to the post-season dance remains in doubt. The Washington Capitals, Florida Panthers and Buffalo Sabres are cluttered between Toronto and eighth place.
But the Leafs are throwing one hell of a party rather than straggle off into the spring.
"We have had the attitude that it is us against the world since January," Stajan said. "Everybody said blow this team up. We're just trying to prove everybody wrong. We're against all odds, but we have put ourselves in position where we are still fighting."
The Leafs, from a glance, should not have won last night. They got to their hotel at 1 a.m. in the wee hours of Saturday after beating the Sabres in Buffalo. The rested Senators had the rambunctious Chris Neil return to the lineup and went hard at the Leafs in the first period, out-hitting their provincial rivals 15-4. Anton Volchenkov crushed rookie Alex Foster at the Senators blue line to put an exclamation mark on the opening 20 minutes, and an early goal by the man Leafs fans hate the most, Daniel Alfredsson, gave Ottawa a 1-0 lead.
A wild second period saw the Leafs go ahead 2-1 on goals by Kyle Wellwood and Alex Steen, and then, as the momentum slipped into the intense atmosphere at Scotiabank Place, the Senators scored three times in less than three minutes to take a 4-2 lead.
But the Leafs kept up with their own definition of resiliency, with Darcy Tucker burying a Pavel Kubina rebound after the defenceman weaved down the ice and slapped a shot at Senators goalie Martin Gerber.
That carried into the third period. First it was rookie Jiri Tlusty scoring after some fine checking by Dominic Moore, and then, at 2:14, Stajan, who is playing his best hockey as a pro, converted a give-and-go pass from Jason Blake for the winner.
There's a little more going on here than excellent goaltending from Vesa Toskala and some timely goals. Stajan, Steen and Kyle Wellwood have made it easy to forget Sundin has missed four games, and really, top to bottom, every Leaf has been better.
"They got something going on in the room," coach Paul Maurice said. "We have had a tough year in Toronto and we have heard about it. We have been playing pretty well for about two months now and we have some confidence in there, a sense of team that maybe we had not had earlier in the year. I think that was something we missed. They have banded together.
"I'm really proud of them."
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REPLAY
TURNING POINT
The Leafs scored two goals early in the third to go ahead 5-4 and managed to hang on for their biggest win of the season.
STAR OF THE GAME
Pavel Kubina, much-maligned earlier in the season, has become a horse down the stretch. He led the Leafs with five shots and had two assists. Kubina was named first star.
BIG MILESTONE
Playing in his 675th NHL game, Leafs defenceman Tomas Kaberle recorded his 400th point when he assisted on Darcy Tucker's goal in the second period. Kaberle has 68 goals and 332 assists in his career.