Shades of last spring crept across the Amalie Arena ice on Saturday night as fans in Tampa once again watched the Toronto Maples Leafs overcome a third-period deficit to defeat the Lightning in overtime, 4-3. John Tavares, who ended the Lightning’s playoff run with an overtime goal in Game Six, ticked a deflected pass past goaltender Jonas Johansson, who was spectacular on the night with 50 saves on 54 shots, for the winning goal.
After William Nylander opened the scoring four minutes into the game, the Lightning scored three times on their next four shots. Nikita Kucherov scored on the power play, assisted on Alex Barre-Boulet’s first goal of the season less than four minutes later, and then capped off his three-point night with another power play goal. The barrage chased Ilya Samsonov to the bench and brought Joseph Wall in as relief. Unfortunately for the Lightning he as stout in relief as he stopped all 29 shots that he faced.
After a scoreless second period that was filled with chances by both the teams, the Leafs tied things up with goals 2:22 apart by Matthew Knies in the third. The young forward, who scored his first career NHL goal in the playoffs against the Lightning, also recorded his first career regular season goal against the Bolts tonight. Tampa Bay had a chance to pull the game out in the dying seconds as Kucherov flashed across the crease with the puck, but he couldn’t get much on his shot and Woll easily denied him.
Toronto had much of the possession in overtime and it was an errant pass through the neutral zone by Brandon Hagel that led to the goal. Hagel tried to feed it diagonally from his blueline, but it hit a skate and went right to John Klingberg. A quick pass sent William Nylander into the Lightning zone with speed and his pass was deflected by a backchecking Mikhail Sergachev and just grazed Tavares’ stick before finding the back of the net.
The Lines
The Goals
William Nylander (Matthew Knies, John Tavares) 1-0 Maple Leafs
Nikita Kucherov (Brayden Point, Victor Hedman) Power Play, 1-1
Alex Barre-Boulet (Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point) 2-1 Lightning
Nikita Kucherov (Mikhail Sergachev, Steven Stamkos) Power Play, 3-1 Lightning
Matthew Knies (Max Domi) 3-2 Lightning
Matthew Knies (Max Domi, David Kampf) 3-3
John Tavares (William Nylander, John Kingberg) Overtime 4-3
