After beating Florida on Monday night, the Toronto Maple Leafs had a chance to close to within two points of the second-place Panthers and take a stranglehold on third in the Atlantic Division when they played host to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday.

Related: The Good, Bad & Ugly In The Maple Leafs 6-4 Win Over Florida

The Good

Toronto started the game great, not allowing Tampa a shot in the first ten minutes. The Maple Leafs outshot the Lightning 11-4 in the period. According to Naturalstattrick.com, Toronto had 66% of the Expected Goals in the first. 

The fourth line set the early tone in the game with a bruising first shift in the Lightning zone. Ryan Reaves nailed Matt Dumba twice on the shift and then crushed Victor Hedman. The 6-foot-7, 245-pound Hedman had just gotten off the ice after the 5-foot-11 and 185-pound Connor Dewar knocked him on his keester in front of the Tampa net just seconds before. 

After going zero for their previous 15 power plays, it took just three seconds for the Maple Leafs to capitalize on their second power play of the game. In his first game back after missing four games with an upper-body injury, Morgan Rielly received the puck when John Tavares won the opening faceoff of the power play. Rielly quickly dished it cross-ice to Auston Matthews. Matthews one-timed the pass from Rielly between Andrei Vasilevskiy’s blocker and right pad into the net. It was his 63rd goal of the season. 

The only other good thing in the game if you were a Maple Leafs fan (and like fights) was Reaves dropping Tanner Jeannott twice and winning by KO in their bout early in the third period. After first going to the penalty box, Jeannott left the game.

The Bad

Joseph Woll did not have a great game. He made some solid saves, and the first two goals scored on him were good goals with more blame put on the players in front of him. I am sure he would like to have the 3-1 and 4-1 goals back. Woll was not the only one at fault for the last two goals as they were both scored on two-on-one plays. But, in both cases, the defenseman took away the pass like they were supposed to leaving the goalie to stop the shooter. He had a clean sightline on shots from some distance on both goals. He just plain missed them. 

If there was a battle for who would start game one of the playoffs, it appears that Ilya Samsonov is on his way to winning it.  

Other quick notes for “The Bad”:

After not getting a shot in the first ten minutes of the game, Tampa Bay scored on their first shot on goal. It was the third game in his last four starts that Woll gave up a goal on the first shot. 

Toronto might have a case to argue that the first goal should never have happened. There was a delayed tripping penalty on Max Domi. As the penalty was happening, Jake McCabe got his stick on an attempted pass by Brandon Hagel, knocking it down, and then cleared the puck away from the front of the Toronto net. That was happening as Domi tripped Hagel. It was close enough that the play could have been ruled dead, but it wasn’t.

On the second goal after losing a faceoff in the Toronto zone, David Kampf had Braydon Point covered as Point skated to the front of the net. Kampf then left Point alone in a poor attempt to intercept a pass from Anthony Duclair to Nikita Kucherov. Kucherov quickly relayed the puck to Point, who was now alone. He went forehand to backhand, drawing Woll out and tucking the puck behind him. 

The Ugly

Despite being down 3-1 after two, the Maple Leafs played the Lightning pretty evenly for two periods. Naturalstatrick.com had the High-Danger Scoring Chances as 6-4 for Toronto in the first period. Tampa led 7-6 in the second. But, for whatever reason the Maple Leafs failed to mount much offense in the third period. 

The shots in the third were 11-4 Tampa, the High-Danger Scoring Chances were 3-1 for the Lightning, and the Expected Goals was 68% in Tampa’s favor. While the Lightning have to get credit for shutting them down, it looked like the Maple Leafs were completely gassed in the third. 

What’s Next?

The Maple Leafs get another day to prepare to visit Montreal to take on the Canadiens. Anyone who is expecting an easier game there might be disappointed. Despite being tied for last in the Atlantic Division and second-last in the East Conference the Canadiens have won four of their last five games. They have beaten the Colorado Avalanche and the Florida Panthers in that span. 

That game is the first of five in eight days for the Maple Leafs. Included in those games is a back-to-back against Pittsburgh and New Jersey. The week after they finish up the season with back-to-back games in Florida. If Toronto is the road team versus Florida for round one of the playoffs, they might remain in the Sunshine State following the Tampa game. They likely won’t fly home and return for game one of the playoffs. 

The good news for the Maple Leafs is that Mitch Marner will return for the Montreal game on Saturday. Joel Edmundson is also practicing and should be back soon.

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