Toronto Maple Leafs: Three Keys to a Game-Two Victory vs Tampa

If the Toronto Maple Leafs have any chance of getting back into this series, there are three things they need to focus on for Game 2.

That was arguably the most pathetic Toronto Maple Leafs game of the past decade, which is hard to say, as there have been a ton.

With so much hype and anticipation, the team didn’t live up to expectations and were flat from the opening face-off.

If you want to look at one positive, this team can’t really play much worse than that can they?

Toronto Maple Leafs Need to Win Game 2

At the end of the day, whether they lost 7-3 or 2-1 in overtime, it would still be 1-0 Tampa Bay right now, so this team needs to be a goldfish and immediately forget about Game 1.

Toronto went up 1-0 during last year’s playoffs and lost the series, so there’s no reason to think that this series is close to over, but you have to imagine Game 2 is a must-win. If you go down 2-0, losing twice at Scotiabank Arena, and have to go Tampa for Game 3, it feels almost impossible that the Toronto Maple Leafs can come back and win.

If you want to look at any positives for Game 1, it’s good that Toronto scored three goals on Andrei Vasilevskiy, but at the same time, it’s embarrassing that they were able to score three times and lost by four.

The next game better look different for this team or it could be a short series. Here are three keys to a Game 2 victory for the Toronto Maple Leafs:

No. 2: Stay out of the Box

The Toronto Maple Leafs had six penalties on Tuesday night and allowed four power-play goals.

Although you can argue that some penalties probably shouldn’t have been called, you can’t put yourself in that situation in a playoff game, especially because of how powerful the Lightning’s power-play is.

Tampa Bay had the third best power-play in hockey this year and they’re going to continue to score if they get the opportunity.

The Leafs cannot allow the Lightning the man-advantage because they’re way too deadly.

If Toronto killed off all their penalties, this game would have ended 3-3 and it would have been a completely different night.

The five-minute major by Michael Bunting was a huge mistake and Toronto can’t be making bone-head moves like that in the biggest game of the season.

Toronto’s penalty-kill should get better and obviously the five-minute kill was tough, but they gave the Lightning way too many chances to score.

Not only were the penalties bad, but their penalty-kill was running around too much and could use a shake-up.

No. 3: Core-Four Needs to Step Up

Auston Matthews (two assists), Mitch Marner (three assists), William Nylander (one goal), Ryan O’Reilly (one goal) and John Tavares (one assist) all made the scoresheet on Tuesday night, but they need to play even better to guarantee a victory on Thursday.

Toronto capitalized with two power-play goals last game, but 5v5, the big boys need to be better to help their team tie the series 1-1.

Of the core-four, the one player that needs to put the team on his back is definitely Matthews. He had a few opportunities, but he only finished with two shots on net last game. (Though he did have seven shot attempts).

That’s way too low of a number for the two-time Rocket Richard winner, as Matthews needs to find a way to get more shots on net.

The 15 minutes of penalties that Toronto gave up definitely hurt Matthews’ chance to score on Tuesday night, so if the Leafs can stay out of the box, he should be much more effective. In fact, I’d bet my life savings that he scores a goal and gets the building rocking early.

If the Leafs can give up less penalties, start on time and the core-four gets buzzing, the Leafs should be tied 1-1 heading to Tampa Bay on Saturday night.