In Toronto, the Maple Leafs stormed back in Game 2 on Thursday night, with John Tavares picking up a hat trick in a 7-2 win over the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The win evened the series with the Lighting at a game apiece.
“Any time you get a hat trick and especially one in the playoffs, it’s pretty cool,” Tavares said. “Obviously I got rewarded from some great plays from my teammates, starting with [Morgan Rielly] who had a [heck] of a night. Any time you can contribute, find a way to get three, it’s always positive to do that and just a sign of the group and how everyone is playing well together.”
Game 3 is in Tampa on Saturday.
“It was a great response, couldn’t ask for a better start,” Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “To earn the power play to begin with and to shoot it in the net right away like that, I thought just our overall focus and execution I thought was really sharp tonight in that first period.
“We needed a response tonight in a big way, they took it to us pretty good the other night, and we needed to have a good day today and we did. So now we have a series. We’ll get out on the road and have to play even better than we did tonight.”
Tavares completed his hat trick with a power play goal with five minutes left on the game clock in the third.
Toronto came out heavy in the first period with Mitchell Marner, Tavares, and William Nylander scoring for a 3-0 lead coming out of the opening stanza.
“Any time you can get on the board early, especially wanting to get off to a good start considering the way things went for us the other night, it brought a lot of life for the group, and we fed off it,” said Tavares.
Tampa was without Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak, who were injured in Game 1.
“This had nothing to do with Victor Hedman being out of the game,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “We’ve won games in this league without Victor Hedman. I could sit here and go through 100 years of clichés, which one do you want? In the end, did we play hard enough to win? Probably not. … It’s not because one guy was out, that would be just a poor, poor excuse.”
Ilya Samsonov made 19 saves in the Maple Leafs crucial win.
Ian Cole scored in the middle frame to trim the Maple Leafs lead to 3-1,
“I think we and pretty much everyone thinks he’s the best goalie in the League,” Cole said. “He wants to stay in that net, it’s his net, he doesn’t want to come out. You’ve got to love a guy like that who doesn’t want to come out and is going to battle to the very end. We have to be way better in front of him.”
The Maple Leafs replied with a series of three goals in just under five minutes of play.
Tavares scored his second of the game to push the advantage back to three goals at 4-1.
Nylander hit for a double in the second to extend the lead to 5-1.
Zach Aston-Reese finished the outburst at 15:52 for a 6-1 Toronto lead headed to the third period.
Corey Perry scored at 12:38 of the third to make the score, 7-2, ahead of the Tavares hat trick.
Tavares hit for his hat trick as a two-skater power play ended for the Lightning.
“We wanted to bounce back and have a good start and really respond after a Game 1 we weren’t proud of, Rielly said. “So, for our group to come out early, have a good start, get on the board and ultimately win the game, [it’s] a great feeling.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves in the Tampa loss.
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