Underrated Toronto Maple Leafs Take Down NHL’s Best Team (Again)

 At this point in time, the Toronto Maple Leafs are likely to face the Tampa Bay Lightning in the first round of the playoffs.

The Toronto Maple Leafs have beat the Lightning again after coming off an extremely rough stretch of games with a close but convincing 2-1 victory at home.

There are some key factors before we get into the game itself that is important to note regarding the win. Two of the Lightning’s core players, Victor Hedman, and Steven Stamkos were out of the lineup due to injury, while Jake Muzzin, Andreas Johnsson and Ilya Mikheyev were missing for the Leafs, so neither team had a full lineup in this matchup.

It was Leafs second win in a row against the Lightning.

Toronto Maple Leafs vs Tampa Bay Lightning

The Toronto Maple Leafs completely dominated Tampa Bay throughout the first period. The Lightning didn’t get a shot till something like less than 10 minutes less left in the game.

The Leafs had an 84xGF% in the first period at 5on5 and to top that off they broke the powerplay drought from not scoring a power-play goal since the last game against Tampa with a classic William Nylander front of the net goal assisted by John Tavares and Mitch Marner. (stats naturalstattrick.com).

Yes, a William Nylander front of the net goal is a classic goal, he has the most of those in the league.

The Leafs didn’t dominate the second like they did in the first,  owing mostly to Tampa’s six minutes of power-play time.

Brayden Point put on a show and showed the reason he is one of the best players in the game with stellar plays all over the ice.

Point outrageously exposed Barrie and Sandin’s lack of defensive awareness by completely embarrassing them by cutting through the middle of the ice which lead to a goal by Palat to tie the game up in the late second period.

Tampa Bay showed exactly why they are the best team in the league over that period, there were many moments where the Leafs were literally hanging on by a thread.

The third period was easily the closest period of the three and the game could have gone either way, the momentum changed back and forth and the Toronto Maple Leafs were the one to take advantage of the powerplays they were finally being awarded with a classic Auston Matthews snipe.

The Leafs did ultimately hold the lead till the end, but there was a certain degree of score effects that took place that you would have liked to avoid, Tampa seemed to create a lot of havoc in the Leafs end.

Important Notes

Frederik Andersen was well composed tonight in the crease. Now with two strong starts in a row, there is hope that Andersen can revive his season with a strong finish.

Cody Ceci is simply useless to this team, he does not provide positive value in any aspect of the game, other than penalty killing, and he  won’t even stand up for his goaltender apparently. (Though to be fair, the Leafs smartly avoided taking an even-up penalty when the Tampa player “fell” on top of Andersen).

Travis Dermott played a team-high 25:06 minutes, he really seems like he is turning it around and being the defensemen everyone sees he is capable of.

The bottom-6 forward group for the Leafs was effective tonight with the Engvall-Kerfoot-Malgin line really impressing against tough opponents.

Overall this game was a success and the Toronto Maple Leafs should be proud of their win against such a strong team, it is nice to see how much potential this roster has when everything comes together, it is just a matter of if everything will come in one piece.