Berezin, Maple Leafs Rebound to Tie Series

The Toronto Maple Leafs had every reason to feel nervous going into overtime, in a building where they already had lost and just one goal away from a potentially insurmountable 3-1 series deficit.

Now, it’s the Pittsburgh Penguins who might be getting the jitters.

Sergei Berezin stuffed a rebound into an open net at 2:18 of overtime, giving the Maple Leafs a 3-2 victory over the Penguins on Thursday night and deadlocking their Eastern Conference semifinal series at two games each.

Game 5 is Saturday at Toronto, where two of the final three games will be played if the series goes seven games.

“That’s a long way to come back and win a series,” the Maple Leafs’ Mats Sundin said of escaping the 3-1 deficit. “Now, 2-2 is a totally different scene.”

Defenseman Bobby Dollas failed to tie up Berezin in the corner, allowing Berezin to skate in unimpeded and push in the rebound of Garry Valk’s shot.

“I went to the net and the puck was waiting for me. Even my son wouldn’t miss that shot,” Berezin said. “It’s like a dream come true.”

Except for goaltender Tom Barrasso, who felt the sequence began rather inconsequentially.

“I thought it [Valk’s shot] was a harmless shot from the point, but it deflected behind me into an open net,” Barrasso said.

The Leafs outshot the Penguins, 30-14, but most of Curtis Joseph’s saves were big ones as Pittsburgh took a 1-0 lead in the first and had most of the better scoring chances in the first 15 minutes of the second period.

“I thought we started out playing the way we wanted to, but we kind of fizzled after that,” Barrasso said.

Around the League

Philadelphia defenseman Eric Desjardins had surgery to repair a knee injury, and doctors say he should recover in time to play next season. The surgery at Pennsylvania Hospital repaired a partial tear of the anterior cruciate ligament of his left knee. Desjardins suffered the ACL injury and a bone bruise after hyperextending his knee during the Flyers’ victory over the Detroit Red Wings on March 21.