There’s a popular saying in hockey: “Safe is death.”And the Maple Leafs sure didn’t play it safe. Maybe they should have. Maybe the wiser course of action would have been to adopt a far more conservative approach against a very difficult opponent.

Instead, they took chances all night against the powerful Boston Bruins in Game 4 of their best-of-seven playoff series, a game they almost certainly had to have if they held serious hopes of advancing to the next round of the Stanley Cup tournament.

A 3-3 game went to excruciating overtime, and still the Leafs kept pushing and taking chances, enough to generate 11 shots on the Bruins net over 13 minutes and at least three very good scoring chances.

But then came one chance too many.

Captain Dion Phaneuf, never a risk-averse defenceman, went for the big hit in the Boston zone, a trademark of his over the course of his career in junior hockey and in the pros.

For better or worse.

He landed the bodycheck, too, with emphasis. Phaneuf hit Boston winger Nathan Horton so hard that Horton’s stick went flying and he was left gasping for air on the ice.

It was a highlight-reel hit, but it came with a big “but.”

Phaneuf didn’t stop the puck from leaking out of the Boston zone, nor did he take into account that he had exposed defenceman Ryan O’Byrne by taking that chance, and nor was his timing good because Horton’s talented colleagues on the first Bruins line, David Krejci and Milan Lucic, were also on the ice.

Off went Krejci and Lucic on a two-on-one break with O’Byrne defending and Phil Kessel trying desperately to catch up. The game plan is always to take away the pass and force the shot, but O’Byrne, a Leaf only since early April, didn’t seem to have that communication clear with young goaltender James Reimer.

Krejci held the puck and held it and held it. Reimer retreated. Krejci bounced the puck off the Leaf goalie’s body.

4-3 Bruins. Death.

That “safe is death” saying came from John Tortorella when he was coaching the Tampa Bay Lightning to the Stanley Cup in 2004, but that approach doesn’t always have the desired result, particularly for a young team that has yet to learn that sometimes safe is better.

Folks, this is a Leaf squad that is learning and will be able to look back on Game 4 and see many good things, from the 48 shots they fired at Tuukka Rask in the Boston net after pounding 47 at him in Game 3, and in the eye-popping 71 hits they landed on Boston players.

But mistakes, oh my, there were many.

The penalty-killing unit, excellent all season and in the first three games of the post-season, gave up two goals. Reimer looked like he was handling someone else’s dirty underwear every time he was forced to touch the puck.

The Leafs were ahead 2-0. They collapsed and fell behind 3-2. They tied it 3-3 with a goal from a player mired in a terrible scoring slump.

They lost defenceman Mark Fraser to a frightening slapshot in the face that sent him, like Blue Jays pitcher J.A. Happ the night before, to the hospital. Nazem Kadri took a dumb penalty and barely played for three periods, then was a force in the OT session.

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Jake Gardiner — again! — was a show unto himself, throwing aside all the disappointment of not being the golden-haired boy this season to play aggressively at both ends of the ice. Out of this series will surely come a sense that Gardiner has learned many hard lessons, but when the hardest hockey came, he was one of the most effective Leafs.

The two Original Six teams conspired for a truly magnificent night of hockey, with the Leafs going toe-to-toe with one of the NHL’s best teams in a playoff battle royale, a scenario that seemed remote 12 months ago after another lost season.

Sometimes you’ve got to look past the score and see the bigger picture, and while hugely disappointing for Leaf fans, this was probably a night to do it.

Moreover, the Air Canada Centre may still get one more time to rock this spring.

Game 6, after all, is scheduled for here Sunday afternoon.

“Game time has yet to be determined,” intoned ACC public address announcer Andy Frost as the stunned reaction to Krejci’s goal was still in the air.

“We hope to see you then.”

It could happen. Wouldn’t bet on a victory in Boston on Friday night to make it happen, but it could.

If it doesn’t, all is not lost for the Leafs. They have worked themselves back to a level of respect, where they must be taken seriously again by the very best teams in hockey.

And they didn’t do it by playing safe.

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