Just a day after clinching a playoff spot and setting the franchise record for wins, the Tampa Bay Lightning fell behind 2-0 in the first period and couldn’t overcome it, losing to the Maple Leafs 3-1 in Toronto. A brilliant 40 save performance by Toronto goalie James Reimer led the Leafs to victory.
The first period saw the Lightning come out a little flat, give up two goals and respond after a J.T. Brown fight.
With Brenden Morrow in the box, the Maple Leafs struck first as Nazem Kadri deflected a Joakim Lindstrom shot past Ben Bishop at 8:53. For Kadri it was his 17th goal. Jake Gardiner also earned an assist.
At 12:03 David Booth scored his seventh of the season from the right circle, unassisted to make it 2-0 Toronto. Andrei Vasilevskiy should have had this one.
At 15:38 Brown and Toronto’s Sam Carrick dropped the gloves and fought to a draw. The fight seemed to get the Lightning going.
Tampa Bay scored on the power play at 18:04 as Ryan Callahan found the rebound off an Ondrej Palat shot and scored his 23rd goal of the season. The assist by Palat was his team leading 44th. Nikita Kucherov also earned an assist.
The Lightning led in shots for the period 14-11, despite being down 2-1.
The best player on the ice during the second period was Bolts backstop Andrei Vasilevskiy who stopped all ten shots fired at him, many of them of the difficult variety. The period saw Alex Killorn hit the post, Steven Stamkos stun Leafs goalie James Reimer with a bullet of a shot and the Lightning go 0-2 on the power play.
Just 24 seconds into the third period, Toronto’s Morgan Rielly scored his eighth goal from Kadri and Gardiner on the man advantage to give the Maple Leafs a two goal cushion. Ondrej Palat and Steven Stamkos got caught way to deep in the Maple Leafs zone creating a 2-on-1 and Rielly blasted a shot from the right dot that beat Vasilevskiy short-side.
Jon Cooper pulled Vasilevskiy with three minutes to go but James Reimer was up to the task. The games number one star stopped all but one of the Lightning’s 41 shots.
Despite outshooting the Maple Leafs 41-28, the Lightning lost 3-1.
The young Lightning blueliners played well. Coach Rick Bowness managed their minutes impressively.
Andrei Vasilevskiy seemed a little off tonight, perhaps because of intermittent starts.
Chalk this one up to the opposing goalie standing on his head.
After the loss, captain Steven Stamkos said that the team’s Achilles heel this season has been playing down to the level of competition.
Tyler Johnson (upper body), Braydon Coburn (lower body, Jason Garrison (upper body), Andrej Sustr (upper body) and Victor Hedman (lower body) were the scratches.
The Lightning will visit the Ottawa Senators Thursday night. Only four games remain in the regular season.
(Feature Photograph/Getty Images)
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