Toronto beats Tampa Bay in Game 2: Leafs leave no doubt they're back in this series
The Leafs didn't just step up when challenged to a fight: they went out and looked for one.
Just like the opening game in this best-of-seven series, a quick sequence in the first minute or so would serve as a microcosm of what to expect.
Mitch Marner, looking like Pro Football Hall of Fame safety Ed Reed, anticipated and intercepted an outlet pass from Alex Killorn, forcing Ian Cole to trip the winger and give the Toronto Maple Leafs a power play just 40 seconds into the game.
Seven seconds later, Marner slapped a puck that didn’t just have eyes of its own, but 20/20 vision, getting past Andrei Vasilevskiy and giving Toronto their first lead of the series.
They never looked back, with Marner scoring another and the rest of the team adding five more to win 7-2 over Tampa Bay in game 2, tying the series at one. Luke Combs said it best: “When it rains, it pours.”
After a dismal 7-3 loss to the Lightning in game 1, the Leafs looked like an entirely different team. Hungry, relentless, finishing every check they couldn’t on Tuesday, suffocating Tampa’s zone entries, clearing space for Ilya Samsonov in front of the net.
They didn’t just step up when challenged to a fight: they went out and looked for one.
After Marner’s opening goal, a scrum in front of the Leafs’ net led to Mark Giordano and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare shoving each other. Giordano dropped his gloves, but the linesmen stepped in before Bellemare could drop his.
Zach Bogosian, seeing his first action of the postseason due to a heavily-injured Tampa Bay blue line, didn’t want to see Giordano go stag to the prom and stepped in, resulting in two or three vicious rights from the 39-year-old defenseman.
After an impressive penalty kill where Marner continued clogging passing lanes and Justin Holl blocking shots, a John Tavares faceoff-win ended up in Morgan Rielly’s possession, who carried the puck into the corner, luring in the Tampa defenders and leaving Tavares wide open in the slot, wristing home Toronto’s second of the game.
On a delayed penalty towards the end of the opening frame, Toronto possessed the puck in Tampa’s zone for what felt like an eternity, ending with William Nylander scoring his second goal of the playoffs. Just like the Lightning in game 1, Toronto held a 3-0 lead at the end of the first.
After Ian Cole cut the deficit to 3-1 nine minutes into the second, there was a moment where the Bolts had a chance to get into this game. A failed clearing attempt by Nylander on the next shift nearly made a Tampa comeback an inevitability. Tavares put an end to that when he buried a juicy rebound for his second of the game, later scoring his third and earning the first postseason hat-trick by a Leaf in 20 years (Alexander Mogilny, if you were wondering).
Down 6-1, Tampa wanted to do what most teams do when they’re getting thumped in a playoff game: send a message. Toronto was all too happy to oblige.
Tanner Jeannot, playing in his first game in two weeks, fought Luke Schenn midway through the third. Schenn looked like Marvelous Marvin Hagler, throwing and landing lefts, each one raising the volume of Scotiabank Arena.
Soon after, Holl and Corey Perry squared off, the one they call The Worm using his reach to get the better of the young Leafs blueliner.
*Bonus stat of the night: 25 seconds before his fight, Perry scored his 53rd career playoff goal, putting him in the top-50 of the National Hockey League’s all-time playoff scoring list.
Perry and Patrick Maroon had a back-and-forth with fans while in the penalty box, arena security stepping in to make sure nothing along the likes of Tie Domi or Ron Arte- Meta World Peace would occur. Perry would be given an extra 10-minute misconduct, with Leaf fans chanting “Perry sucks, Perry sucks” at the top of their lungs for a minute.
It was an atmosphere unlike any heard at Scotiabank Arena or the venue formerly known as the Air Canada Centre in quite some time (excluding when there’s a basketball court instead of a hockey rink). I think I would be avoiding hyperbole when I say tonight’s game was a must win for Toronto; going to Tampa down 2-0 would be as close to signing a death warrant as you can get in sports. After being pummelled 48 hours earlier, they responded about as well as they could have.
Tavares and Marner stood out with their offensive bursts, as did Rielly with four assists, tying a franchise playoff record. It might have been the 2012 fifth overall-pick’s finest game as a Maple Leaf.
Filling in for a suspended Michael Bunting, Matthew Knies proved he belonged in an NHL lineup, getting in on the forecheck on a line with Ryan O’Reilly and Noel Accairi. On one sequence to start the second, Knies walked the Tampa goal line like the Undertaker walks the top rope, resulting in a scoring chance. Bunting may be available for game 5, but there’s no guarantee they’ll be a spot waiting for him.
As the two teams fly south for games 3 and 4 of what’s now a best-of-five, Leafs Nation can breathe a sigh of relief that they aren’t two losses away from their seventh-straight first-round elimination. Their five highest-paid players looked like their five best players. Let’s see if they continue the trend on Saturday night.