Maple Leafs given reality check by Lightning in a Game 1 to forget

It was a Game 1 to forget. Only it will be a hard one for the Toronto Maple Leafs and their long suffering fans to forget.

Mistake after mistake. Penalty after penalty. Ilya Samsonov replaced by Joseph Woll. Michael Bunting ejected. Booed as they left the ice. Anything that could go wrong, did go wrong as the Tampa Bay Lightning early, struck often and thundered their way to a 7-3 win Tuesday night at Scotiabank Arena.

If the Leafs thought the opening game of their Stanley Cup playoff series was going to be easy, if they thought regular season success translates into the post-season, they were sadly mistaken.

“We just didn’t execute well,” said captain John Tavares. “We did a good job of battling back, but we took too many penalties and that took us out of the game. We’re disappointed with how the game went. We’ve got to be a lot better. We’ve got to regroup, learn from it and have a short memory and come out (in Game 2) with response.”

By the end of the game, Tampa was down three key players and the Leafs still couldn’t do much. Defenceman Victor Hedman played only the first period, and left for reasons the Lightning didn’t explain during the game. Forward Michael Eyssimont left after taking a hit to the head from Jake McCabe. Defenceman Erik Cernak was out after Bunting’s illegal hit to the head.

But the Lightning know what the playoffs are all about, while the Leafs are still trying to find their way. Tampa’s tried and true playoff performers all lit the red lamp: Brayden Point scored twice. Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli, Corey Perry, Ross Colton, and Pierre-Édouard Bellemare scored once each for Tampa.

Toronto got goals from Calle Järnkrok – who took Bunting’s place on the top line – as well as power-play goals from Ryan O’Reilly and William Nylander. Mitch Marner assisted on all three.

By any measure, scoring three times on Andrei Vasilevskiy is good news, but Samsonov’s night was not. Sure, the team was terrible in front of him, but he allowed six goals on 29 shots. One goal went in with four seconds left in the first. One went in with one second left in the second. The knock on him in Washington was the playoffs, where he has one career win. His rebound control was suspect and he seemed unsure of himself in net.

“That was tough for us, not what we want to see,” said Samsonov. “This was just one game. The series is not over. We didn’t think this would be an easy series.”

Scouting the refs

The online community was atwitter with word the NHL assigned referees Wes McCauley and Frederick L’Ecuyer to the game. Keefe has had his run-ins with McCauley over the course of their careers, made murkier by the fact that McCauley’s brother-in-law is disgraced coach and former agent David Frost, with whom Keefe has cut ties. Keefe was fined $25,000 (U.S.) for “demeaning conduct directed at the officials” during a game in St. Louis on Dec. 27 in which McCauley was officiating.

Coincidence or not, fans chanted “refs suck” when the officials took to the ice in warm-ups. And fans were not happy that the Leafs got the only two penalties of the first period, and were trailing 3-0 in part thanks to Kucherov’s power-play goal with four seconds left in that period.

The Leafs did a good job getting back into the game in the second as O’Reilly and Nylander scored power-play goals to cut the lead to 3-2. But then a series of penalties went against the Leafs and Tampa poured it on.

The worst was Bunting having his Nazem Kadri moment, ejected for an illegal hit to the head of Cernak. Corey Perry scored early during the five-minute major, a goal the Leafs challenged and lost. It was the first video review challenge the Leafs lost all season. That put them two men down. They killed the bench minor, but Point scored with a second to go in the period as the Leafs left the ice to boos. It was Point’s second power-play goal.

History lesson

Teams that take a 1-0 lead in a best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoffs round hold an all-time series record of 507-235 (.683), including an 8-7 (.533) mark in 2022. The Leafs were one of those teams that lost last year after winning the first game.

That game last year was a doozy, 5-0 for the Leafs, powered by two goals from Matthews. Like this one, it was filled with animosity, the Leafs taking 62 penalty minutes and Tampa 51, with fighting majors and misconducts spread through the lineup. By the end of the series, the refs had put their whistles away and the shenanigans had ended.

Leafs favoured

Most of the betting sites have the Leafs favoured to beat Tampa. That may mean simply that more Leafs fans are betting on their favourite team, more out of belief than of conviction. One narrative suggested the Lightning were getting old, and perhaps worn down from making it to the final three years in a row.

Lightning coach Jon Cooper was quick to tell reporters that the malaise with which Tampa finished their season — they were under .500 since the trade deadline — would not be a factor. Like the Leafs, they knew who their opponents would be a long time ago. Unlike the Leafs, they have Stanley Cup experience to draw from at this time of year.

“We were playing extremely well till the night we clinched (a playoff spot),” Cooper said. “It’s human nature. There’s no question these guys knew the situation. Have they been here before? They have. But I do think there was a little bit of mental fatigue in the last four of five weeks.”

Bad start

The first period was all Lightning. The Leafs were on their heels and making giveaways. Zach Aston-Reese coughed up the puck in the that led to the first goal, by Bellemare, as Tampa’s fourth line clobbered the Leafs’ fourth line. The second goal was almost comical, the Leafs failing twice to get the puck through the neutral zone. The Lightning attacked, and an initial shot led to a big rebound and no Leaf — and there were three of them — managed to take out the goal-scorer, Anthony Cirelli.

Emergency backup

The Leafs called up goalie Erik Källgren to be their third goalie under a new rule that requires teams to provide their own emergency backup during the playoffs. He must be under an NHL contract. Matt Murray, meanwhile, continues to rehabilitate from a concussion. “He’s skating and progressing well,” Keefe said, “but still not at the point where he would qualify as one of those three (goalies).”

Forward Matt Knies and defenceman Erik Gustafsson each participated in the warm-up but were scratched. Defencemen Timothy Liljegren and Conor Timmins and forward Wayne Simmonds were also healthy scratches.

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