For the first time this season, the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Toronto Maple Leafs. With goals from Victor Hedman, Brayden Point, Steven Stamkos, and Nick Paul, and backed by 27 saves from Andrei Vasilevskiy, the Lightning narrowed their magic number to clinch a playoff spot to 4 points and narrowed the gap between them and the Leafs for the third spot in the Atlantic Division to 4 points. Auston Matthews had the lone tally for the home team, his 63rd on the season while Joseph Wall stopped 21 shots.
Oh, and Nikita Kucherov had another ho-hum, three-assist game to set franchise records in assists and points while extending his points lead to three over Nathan MacKinnon.
[Game Center] [Natural Stat Trick] [Game Events]
It was a bit of an auspicious start for the Lightning as they didn’t have their first shot attempt until roughly four minutes into the game, and had to kill off a penalty before they actually put a shot on Joseph Woll. At least they made that shot count as, on a delayed penalty, Victor Hedman found some space on a screened Woll for his 13th goal of the season.
Victor Hedman [13] (Nikita Kucherov, Brandon Hagel) 1-0 Tampa Bay
Despite Toronto carrying much of the play at 5v5, the Lightning had a couple of chances on the power play to extend their lead, but the Leafs aggressive play stymied the best power play in the league and they could only muster one shot attempt in their four minutes with the extra skater.
A late power play for the home team was much more successful as the league leader in goals added another to his collection. It wasn’t an overly complicated play. The Leafs won the face-off and Matthews blasted a shot from distance. The kid is a shooter.
Auston Matthews (63) [Morgan Reilly, John Tavares] Power Play, 1-1
While a late goal is never something a team wants to concede, with the amount of time the Lightning spent in their own zone, getting out of the first period tied was probably a good thing. Outside of the goal he allowed, Vasilevskiy was sharp, making several key stops through the first 20 minutes of play.
In the second period, the Lightning apparently took a lesson from the Detroit Red Wings in their meeting on Monday. If your offensive chances are going to be limited, make the most of them. Natural Stat Trick had the Bolts with 19 shot attempts in the middle frame with 10 of them making it on net. Well, 8 on net and 2 in the net. First it was the top line doing their thing. Nikita Kucherov and Anthony Duclair did a good job of keeping the play going along the boards before setting up Brayden Point for the go ahead goal.
Brayden Point [43] (Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Duclair) 2-1 Tampa Bay
There were a few noticeable things about this goal. First off, Kucherov (listed at 5’2″, 182 pounds) shows how strong he is on his skates. Along the boards, he yeets Ilya Lyubushkin (6’2″, 200 pounds) far enough to create some space to make the pass to Point. Second, David Kampf makes a horrible read on the pass from Duclair to Kucherov. It looks like Kampf thought he could cut it off, but then stopped. Stuck in no-man’s land he turned to see Point wide open in front of his goaltender and Pointer rarely misses from there. Finally, in picking up the assist, his second of the game, Kucherov established a new franchise record for points in a season with 129.
After the goal, Toronto pushed back with the next nine shot attempts being credited to them. The Bolts weathered the storm and then started to push back a little. A clean breakout (started by an interesting pass right through their own crease by Erik Cernak) led to Brandon Hagel taking a hit at center ice to spring Steven Stamkos on a two-on-one.
He looked briefly at Anthony Cirelli, and while Tony Two Goals has been on a bit of a heater in the second half, The Captain called his own number and wristed it past Woll to establish a two-goal lead.
Steven Stamkos (32) [Brandon Hagel, Haydn Fleury] 3-1 Tampa Bay
Carrying a lead into the third period against the Maple Leafs brings to mind some harrowing memories of last year’s playoff series, but unlike those games nearly a year ago, the Bolts kept their best defensive hockey in their pocket until the final frame. Instead of circling the wagons, they pressed the Leafs and led them in shot attempts (22-13), scoring chances (10-3), and high-danger chances (3-1).
Sure the Leafs led in fights won as Ryan Reeves scored a knockdown on Tanner Jeannot (from my vantage, it looked like Jeannot was slightly distracted by his helmet and Reeves slipped a shot in, but hey that’s the way it goes).
If the goal of the fight was to inspire his teammates, it really didn’t work as Tampa Bay continued to carry the play and came close to adding to their lead a few minutes later while on the power play. They didn’t quite connect, but buzzed the net on a few good looks. More importantly, that was two minutes where the Leafs had to defend instead of attack the net.
With just under six minutes to go in the game, Darren Raddysh flipped the puck out of the zone and Paul collected it at center ice. Mikey Eyssimont darted to the far post, but like Stamkos before him, Paul wanted the glory and he roofed the perfect wrist shot past Woll for the goal. Sometimes simple plays are the best plays. With an assist on the play, Nikita Kucherov established a new franchise record in points with 130.
Nick Paul (20) [Darren Raddysh, Nikita Kucherov] 4-1 Tampa Bay
It might not have been the prettiest first forty minutes of a game, and the Lightning, at times, bent like a reed in a windstorm, but they did not break. When asked after the game if the Lightning are where they need to be as a team, Coach Cooper deflected a bit and answered a question with a question, “Are the Tampa Bay Lightning better in April than they were in October, November, December? We are.”
That’s really what matters right now. This team isn’t playing perfect, but they’re playing better. It’s been good enough to get them on the precipice of the the playoffs. Now they have to finish the job.
