Maple Leafs routed in Tampa, 8-1

In Tampa, the Lightning busted out their offense in a 8-1 shellacking of the Toronto Maple Leafs on Thursday night.

Steven Stamkos had a goal and three points in the win, he established himself as the franchise’s all-time leading scorer.

“It’s funny how things work out,” Stamkos said. “To do it at home against the team I grew up idolizing. Having ‘Kuch’ and ‘Heddy’ assist on a one-time shot. My parents were here, my wife was here … I don’t really think of myself as an emotional guy, but that really hit me. It was just amazing experience for me to have.”

Alex Killorn and Ross Colton hit for doubles in the Tampa rout.

The Lightning improved to 46-22-8.

“I really like a lot of the things we did, but don’t read too much into it, it’s just one game,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “A lot of things went our way, we earned a lot of our own breaks, but it’s just one game.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy made 35 saves in the Lightning win.

With the win, the Lightning moved three points clear of the Boston Bruins for third in the Atlantic Division.

“There are a couple of things we’re disappointed in, obviously in the way we played, just not helping out our goaltender,” the Maple Leafs’ John Tavares said. “Second, it’s a good lesson for us going forward to understand just the way we need to play. Obviously against a team like this they don’t need a whole lot and the game changed really quickly there in the second period.”

Toronto dropped to 51-21-6).

Ilya Mikheyev was the lone striker for the Leafs.

“To me it was clear that the game meant more to them tonight than it did to us, and it showed in how they played and how they competed,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said. “That’s what happens when that’s the case. You get a little sample of how hard you need to play and how well you need to play to be able to beat a team of that quality when they’re playing at that level.”

Killorn now has 401 carer goals.

“It means a lot, it’s been a great ride,” Killorn said. “I’ve been fortunate that I kind of came in at the right time and things have gone well for us recently. But I’m super excited and I feel like I have a lot of hockey left to play.”

After scoring four times in the middle frame, the Lightning’s Ondrej Palat scored in the third period to make it 5-0.

Pat Maroon and Nikita Kucherov added single markers in the Tampa rout.