In Tampa, the Toronto Maple Leafs’ Mitchel Marner scored a shorthanded goal to open the game on Saturday night with the Lighting.
That point extended his streak to 19 games to set a Maple Leafs record.
“It’s cool. I grew up in this city, I love being a part of this team nowadays,” Marner said. “It’s special to me and it’s special growing up to watch this team play hockey, and now to have my name on something pretty amazing, it’s hard to describe, but like I’ve been saying, it’s not a one-man effort out there.”
His second goal of the game came n the third period on the power play to tie the game, 3-3, and force extra time.
Alex Killorn won it for the Lightning with 33 seconds gone in the extra session for the 4-3 win.
“It was really tough,” Killorn said. “Going into the third, 5-on-5, I personally didn’t have a ton of shifts. A lot of guys hadn’t got a lot of chemistry with their lines just because we hadn’t had a lot of 5-on-5 play, but in the third it kind of came alive.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 saves for the Tampa win.
“Just way too many power plays and penalties,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “It takes away from the flow and everything that is going on. It just kind of disrupted everything. It was a weird game tonight, just weird. I think both coaches and staffs will look at it, and the only benefit was we got the extra point, but it was a weird game.”
The Lightning improved to 15-6-1.
Vladislav Namestnikov, Nikita Kucherov, and Ross Colton were the regulation strikers for the Lightning.
William Nylander had a single marker for the Leafs.
“This is not one we are going to overthink,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “We can’t give them the puck there and we need a save there. Matt knows that. He played a great game, so we’ll let that one slide.”
Namestnikov tied the game, 1-1, in the first period.
“You could tell that was a huge exhale,” Cooper said. “You felt the roof blow off a little bit when he scored that one, and the guys on the bench, everyone recognizes that, so I am really happy for him.”
Matt Murray made 29 saves n the loss.
“I thought we deserved a better fate. That one in overtime is one I need to come up with,” Murray said. “Then it could go either way in overtime, obviously. Both teams played pretty well. It just knuckled a bit, kind of handcuffed me. Popped up at the last second and really dipped pretty hard.”
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