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Maple Leafs shed ‘soft’ label, shake off doubts with special-teams dominance

TORONTO — It took just 12 minutes of the first period of the first game of this first-round series against the defending champions for the  Toronto Maple Leafs  to dispense with all those post-season ghosts. Those shape-shifting doubts that loomed over them in the days leading up to the puck dropping on Monday night at Scotiabank Arena. There was talk of violence, of the damage veteran, Cup-winning bulls like Pat Maroon and Corey Perry would try to inflict upon these young Maple Leafs, of whether Sheldon Keefe’s side was scrambling trying to prepare a response. There was talk of offensive juggernauts, of Stamkoses and Kucherovs and historic scoring paces in the weeks preceding this series-opening affair, of some type of otherworldliness Toronto would have to simply survive. Twelve minutes in, these Leafs had that script crumpled up in the bin. It started two minutes in, when T.J. Brodie was sent to the box on a hooking call, putting the Lightning’s power play monsters — St...