In Tampa Thursday, Frederik Andersen made 33 saves to help the Toronto Maple Leafs to a 5-0 shutout of the Lighting.
“We skated real good early and we had good energy,” Leafs head coach Mike Babcock said. “That’s really important for us. All four lines were good, and we didn’t need to worry about matchups. So, good win for our team and good things happened in the
Connor Brown had goal in win over Tampa Thursday night – file photo by Lewis Bleiman
League for us tonight.”
The Leafs managed to get scoring from across the lineup and moved one point ahead of the Bolts and New York Islanders for the second wild card spot in the east.
Roman Polak, Morgan Rielly, Matt Martin, Connor Brown and James van Riemsdyk scored for Toronto as the Leafs improved to 32-23-14.
“It was a big win for us,” Martin said. “We had a good response [Thursday], played a good first period and obviously had a big second period offensively. Luckily we were able to shut the door in the third. [Andersen] made a lot of big saves in the third as well.”
Tampa was unable to make much an impact on the Leafs’ offensive efforts especially with shots on net from the points.
“I think pretty much all of their goals are off point shots,” Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman said. “So it obviously starts there with blocking shots, our forwards need to a better job of blocking them, and the rest of the guys need to do a better job of clearing out the front of the net, clearing out bodies and tying up sticks.”
WATCH: All Maple Leafs vs. Lightning highlights
Andrei Vasilevskiy got the start for Tampa and was given the hook after yielding four goals on 15 shots.
Peter Budaj came into the game in relief in the early half of the middle frame and five of shots he faced.
“We didn’t give them a ton of scoring chances, just every one they had went in the net. It was a product of us just not defending. We were just too far away from our net. We weren’t men down low. It cost us, so just learn from it and move on. That’s it,” Tampa head coach Jon Cooper said.
The loss dropped the Bolts to 34-27-9.
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