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For the third consecutive time this season, the Maple Leafs beat the Lightning in regulation. 

Even though it was a one-goal game with an empty netter and Tampa Bay made a really strong push to tie it, the Leafs led nearly from wire-to-wire in this one. It always felt relatively comfortable, even when Tampa was controlling play. Joseph Woll was excellent in the net, and the Leafs really seem to have the Lightning’s number ever since beating them in the 2023 playoffs. 

Your game in 10:

1.   In the morning media availability, Jon Cooper referenced the Leafs beating Tampa twice already this season, implying this was a measuring stick game. He noted that their starts have really hurt them in the season series and that he would “be really disappointed if we don’t come out strong.”

After all that, the Leafs got off to the stronger start in this one. On the opening draw, Pontus Holmberg won it, and the Leafs put the puck deep. On the next shift, Auston Matthews got a nice one-timer off, and Matthew Knies followed it up with a good rebound opportunity.

The Leafs also debuted their new defense pairings in the top four, and everything looked very smooth early on. Seemingly, any pairing that includes Jake McCabe is good — even when he plays on the right side — while the Oliver Ekman-Larsson – Chris Tanev pairing was primarily on the ice with the Matthews line, making their lives much easier.

As the period progressed, the Lightning started slipping Nikita Kucherov on with other lines to shift away from the matchups in place.

2.   The Leafs capitalized on their strong start by taking the lead just over four minutes into the game.

With the neutral zone open through most of the period, the Leafs connected on more than a few stretch passes to create speed and quality looks off the rush. In this sequence, they won a battle behind their net, and both Knies and Mitch Marner released the zone, skating to center as OEL came out from behind the net with time and space. OEL ripped a pass up to Knies at center, where Knies, with a defender draped all over him, made a really nice one-touch to Matthews in stride.

From there, it was almost a slingshot play. Knies took the defender with him, and Matthews shot through the lane, flying right down the ice for a 2v1 in which Ryan McDonagh completely sold out on the pass, allowing Matthews to skate right in and easily beat Jonas Johansson through the five-hole.

3.   The Leafs almost doubled their lead immediately afterward as Bobby McMann was sprung on a breakaway and unsuccessfully tried to beat Johansson low.

The Leafs created several good looks as the period went along, including Nick Robertson‘s rebound chance off a nice Conor Timmins point shot and Connor Dewar‘s good chance in the slot after David Kampf drove the net.

Most notably, Max Domi grabbed a broken pass and should have been on a breakaway, but as has been his MO all season, he pulled up instead of going hard to the net. He settled for a cross-ice pass that Fraser Minten got a shot off from, but he was well covered and probably didn’t get the exact shot off he wanted. The play summed up why Domi has three goals in 38 games right now. He refuses to go to the dirty areas and settles for the pass at every opportunity.

At the other end, Joseph Woll made a few good saves — one on Nick Paul off the rush, one on a Cirelli one-timer in the high slot, and a big save on Girgensons with a minute left. The shot attempts were even when the period ended, but the Leafs were close to 67 percent of the expected goals, a reasonably accurate depiction of the period overall.

4.   In the second period, Tampa Bay flipped Nikita Kucherov onto a line with Cirelli and Brandon Hagel and Paul onto a line with Jake Guentzel with Brayden Point. The Leafs felt good about their matchups in the first, but this threw their game off a bit in the second.

Kucherov was creating at will against the Holmberg-led second line to start the period. Berube tried riding it out for a few shifts, but it was tilting the wrong way. Eventually, Berube switched the Matthews line against the Cirelli unit to defend against Kucherov. This meant that Holmberg was going up against Point, also causing problems, and Berube started rotating in Kampf for defensive-zone faceoffs with Nylander and McMann to soften the blow.

It was a bit of a chess match back and forth with the matchups all night. Lucky for the Leafs, they not only had the lead throughout this time, but Woll was excellent when called on. Tampa generated several clean looks in the high-slot area and a few rebound scrambles in front, but Woll made himself big and was efficient in his movements, making some difficult saves look easy.

5.   Tampa was controlling the play for the first half of the period as the Leafs sorted through the matchups, yet the Leafs scored to double the lead off a defensive-zone faceoff.

Against New Jersey last week, Morgan Rielly and Steven Lorentz got burned off a similar play, leading to an easy Jack Hughes goal as Rielly rounded the net and passed it up to Lorentz. Against New Jersey, Lorentz was stonewalled, but on this play, he was stopped on the initial chip-out attempt and poked the puck free. Rielly chipped it up, and Nylander was off to the races on yet another breakaway.

We’ve seen this breakaway move from Nylander before, where he goes down and winds up, picks his spot, and rips it. It’s a really hard shot to read off his stick, freezing goalies in their tracks. Johansson barely moved as the puck blew past him.

Nylander’s 28th goal of the season now ranks him second in the entire NHL. That doesn’t seem to be receiving much attention, but he’s one of the best goal-scorers in the league this season, which has helped pick up the slack from Matthews missing games or playing hurt for most of the first half.

6.   While the Lightning were playing a strong period, they were down 2-0, and the game would’ve felt very much over if the Leafs could score next. Instead, Tampa finally broke through on what looked like a very innocent sequence at first blush.

The goal itself was shot from the boards that looked like a really bad goal on Woll in real-time, but on the replay, we could see Nick Paul tipped it, and Woll couldn’t see the puck at any point with the traffic in front of him. You’d still like to see him make himself big so that he doesn’t get beat with a seeing-eye shot, but the breakdown ahead of the goal is also worth flagging.

Firstly, Guentzel won the rebound off the point shot — the type of sequence the Leafs want to stop dead in its tracks. It allowed the Lightning to cycle it back to the point again. From there, Point pulled high, causing some confusion in the coverage as McCabe and Minten both covered Paul at one point, leaving Darren Raddysh wide open with the time to look up and wrist a shot through.

It was a small breakdown by the Leafs and a good play by Paul on the tip to make it a game again.

7.   It was shaping up to be a big third period, but with under a minute left, the Leafs’ top line scored their second goal of the game, restoring the Leafs’ two-goal cushion.

Earlier in the period, Knies got stripped on a breakout, leading to a good Tampa chance. On this play, he bore down and left nothing to chance, getting low and using his strength to make a good pass to Matthews to get it out. He got the puck back and opened things up with a stutter move on Connor Geekie in the neutral zone, creating some space in the middle of the ice. Matthews quickly cut in and dished it off to Marner, who made a great one-touch pass to Knies, who, unlike Domi, actually made a power move to go backhand, forehand, and shoot it in.

I am not sure the Leafs “deserved” to win the period, but this was a big, somewhat deflating goal for Tampa to give up late in the middle frame. It’s what your top players are supposed to do against division rivals.

8.   It was a slow start to the third period before Pontus Holmberg took a hooking penalty after he turned it over in the neutral zone, giving Tampa’s fourth-ranked power play a chance to score early. Instead, it was a big kill for the Leafs, who only gave up one shot on the power play as Tampa generated very little.

The Lightning eventually made it a 3-2 game eight minutes into the period. The goal came off a faceoff in Toronto’s zone, which I don’t think the Leafs lined up for properly. Tampa Bay loaded up both wingers on the inside hashmark, and the Leafs kept Marner on the far hashmark standing by himself. When Tampa won the faceoff to Hedman (the defenseman above Knies at the point), Knies skated out to him as wingers normally do (skate through the shooting lane.) The problem is that Knies is the left winger, not the right winger, so all Hedman needed to do was pass it over to a wide-open Raddysh, who took the pass with all day to wind up and rip home a slapper through traffic.

Marner basically didn’t exist in the entire sequence, and the Leafs were not cohesive in their coverage, leading to a wide-open shot and goal.

9.   Holmberg had an up-and-down game as Berube started subbing in Kampf for him more and more as the night went on. Holmberg took the penalty, but he also drew one, adding to his team-leading drawn penalty total of 14.

On the power play, the Leafs cashed in with their five-forward unit. Last week, Matthews scored a power play after McMann bumped a puck to Nylander on the point, where Nylander shot it, leading to a rebound goal in front. This week, McMann bumped a puck to Marner on the point, where Marner shot it, leading to a Knies rebound goal in front. Knies did really well to find the puck and calmly shoot it in for his 18th goal on the season.

Two minutes later, though, Tampa returned the favour with a power-play goal of their own following a rather soft call on Kampf. The Lightning ripped it around crisply, leading to a Hagel slap pass backdoor to Paul for a tap-in. Tampa has an elite power play, and they will burn the PK if they keep getting man-advantage opportunities.

10.    At 4-3, Tampa had an excellent opportunity to tie the game as Point flew in off the rush for a good backhand shot that deflected off Woll’s shoulder, the crossbar, dropped down and bounced right above the goal line before a sprawling Tanev cleared it out of the crease. On the next shift, Paul ripped a wrister in the high slot that knocked Woll’s helmet off.

After Tampa pulled their goalie, Marner and Matthews stayed on the entire time (Knies changed at one point after botching an open look at the empty net for a hat trick), and Marner eventually iced the game with an empty-net goal. Tampa pulled their goalie again, and McMann missed two clean looks at the empty net.

The Leafs stars showed up in this one. All three scored, and all played at least 20:55. McMann was up at 19:05 as he continued to cement himself as a top-six forward on this team, and Knies played just under 20 minutes. The third line didn’t have a player over 11:21, but Kampf moved up with the team defending the lead and played over 14 minutes.

It was a top-six heavy game on both sides — four Tampa forwards played less than nine minutes — and it played out the same on defense. Tanev played over 24 minutes for the second straight game, and his partner, OEL, played over 23. Neither Benoit nor Timmins broke the 14-minute mark (Benoit was one second under). It was a pure best-on-best game, and the Leafs won the day. 

Game Flow: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Heat Map: 5v5 Shot Attempts

Game Highlights w/ Todd Crocker & Jim Ralph

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