In Toronto, Auston Matthews potted his 47th goal of the season in the third period, and the Maple Leafs edged the Tamps Bay Lightning, 2-1, on Tuesday night.
William Nylander had a goal for the Maple Leafs – file photo by LewisBleiman
“It could be the divisional kind of rivalry (that led to the strong efforts), and obviously we know they’re a really good team, so I think we’d like to find ourselves playing more consistently like we have in (those games against Tampa Bay) no matter who it is against and have starts like we did tonight, no matter who we are playing,” Matthews said.
Frederik Andersen made 32 saves to earn the win.
Ondrej Palat scored in the middle frame to tie the game at 1-1.
“It was disappointing tonight,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “During the course of a year, 82 games, three periods a game, that’s a lot of periods of hockey, and for the most part we have a lot of good ones, a small amount we could have been better and couple that are embarrassing, and that would fall under the embarrassing category.
“If you’re not going to compete hard, be physical and do things you need to have success, you’ll chase a team like that around the rink all night, and that’s what we did, especially in the first period.”
William Nylander scored to give the Leafs a 1-0 lead.
“I think the start was really important, that was a big key for us,” Matthews said. “I really thought we controlled the game there in the first. It would have been nice to capitalize on a few more chances to give us a bigger lead, but obviously they’re a really good team. The second period got away from us a bit, took some penalties, but I think that first period is a good starting point for us in terms of how we want to play.”
[WATCH:Â All Lightning vs. Maple Leafs highlights]
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 34 saves in the loss.
“Tonight we didn’t come prepared,” Alex Killornsaid. ” I remember looking up at the shots and it was 10-1 at one point. Just not good enough. It doesn’t matter if it’s at home or on the road, but you just want to have a better start than that. The League is a shot-and-retrieval league, that’s how you create your opportunities, and they were winning a lot of battles for pucks in the first period and getting pucks on net while we weren’t getting anything through. They had a tough road trip, they came in here playing desperate, desperate hockey, and you could tell right from the beginning.”
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