The captain always goes down with his ship. But until the very end, he must fight to keep it afloat.

And that’s just what happened for the Toronto Maple Leafs on Friday night. Six minutes into the third period, Maple Leafs captain Auston Matthews finally found the opening goal, potting the eventual game-winner en route to a 2-0 shutout victory over the Florida Panthers, forcing Game 7 in the process.

Facing the prospect of elimination, following up on Wednesday’s blowout loss, the Leafs needed to come up with a big performance on the road in Game 6. And on Friday, they came in and got it done.

“Gutsy, just a gutsy win all around,” Matthews said to Sportsnet’s Kyle Bukauskas following the win. “I thought we just battled hard all three periods. It took until midway through the third to break through, but I just thought all throughout our lineup everybody played hard, everybody competed.”

Matthews’ goal in particular was the story of the night, as the American had failed to score in five consecutive contests entering Friday night, along with a long track record of playoff difficulties. Having been snakebitten all series, he talked about what it meant to finally get one through.

“It felt great,” Matthews said during his postgame press conference. “Like I said this morning, I’ve had some good opportunities all series, and so I’m just gonna continue to shoot and believe that the next one is going in. So that one felt great.”

In the face of pressure up and down the roster, the Leafs rose to the occasion as a team. From the goaltending, to the depth pieces, to the Core Four, it was the kind of all-around effort that gets results in the postseason.

“I just thought we played with good structure,” Matthews said. “We didn’t force things, we played simple. I thought we skated hard, skated well, forechecked well. Able to break through late and just played solid defence there to close it out.”

Besides his game-winning marker, Matthews also caught attention earlier when he took a stick to the eye, heading briefly to the locker room before returning to the bench. Luckily for the Leafs, it looks like it’s nothing serious, though it was definitely a close call.

“A little scary there,” he said. “Had some trouble seeing so they just wanted to go check it out in the room, let it calm down. And I was kind of able to get some decent vision back and was fine to go back out there. But they definitely wanted to check it out and make sure it was all good.”

Now, the Leafs turn their attention to the all-important Game 7, with a chance to book their ticket to the Conference Finals for the first time since 2002. With the series-tying win in their rearview, they are well aware that the greatest test awaits them yet.

“Just to get that win feels great obviously, but the job’s not done yet,” Matthews said. “It’s a gutsy win to keep our season alive, but we’ve got one more job to finish.”