TORONTO — With their 82-game dress rehearsal done, the Lightning wasted no time putting on a show Tuesday night.
After just 20 minutes on the postseason stage, the Lightning had silenced Toronto’s Scotiabank Arena and shocked the Maple Leafs by taking a three-goal lead.
How much did the Lightning take the home crowd out of the game? When Nikita Kucherov rifled a slap shot past Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov with 2.6 seconds left in the period, Lightning radio announcer Dave Mishkin’s goal call could be heard through the press box.
The Lightning overwhelmed Toronto, opening the series with a dominating 7-3 win.
The Lightning meandered through the second half of the regular season with mostly unspectacular hockey. But when it mattered most, they showed they’re still that team that loves when you don’t believe in them.
Last season, they lost Game 1 in Toronto 5-0, a defeat that coach Jon Cooper mentioned multiple times in recent days.
Going into the series, the talk was about what the Leafs had gained at the trade deadline, and what the Lightning had lost from last year’s Stanley Cup finalist squad. Toronto improved its depth and the Lightning’s took a dent. They didn’t have previous postseason stars like Ondrej Palat and Ryan McDonagh to bail them out.
So it was ironic that fourth-line center Pierre-Edoaurd Bellemare scored the first goal of the postseason 78 seconds into the game.
Corey Perry kept the puck in the offensive zone and circled around the back of the net before shooting, and Bellemare pounced on the rebound to give Tampa Bay the lead and give Bellemare the quickest Lightning goal to open the postseason. Alex Killorn scored 4:12 into the 2019 postseason.
Anthony Cirelli then pounced on a rebound to put the Lightning up 2-0, and Kucherov’s rocket from the right circle put the Lightning up by three.
The game certainly wasn’t over there, as the Leafs surged in the second period to make it a one-goal game. The contest quickly became a special teams match, with the teams combining for six straight power-play goals.
After the Leafs rallied with two power-play goals in the period, Brayden Point cut across the front of the net, beating Samsonov to give the Lightning a two-goal cushion and stunt Toronto’s momentum.
The Lightning were already without defenseman Victor Hedman and forward Mikey Eyssimont, who left the game due to injury, when defenseman Erik Cernak was taken down by a Michael Bunting elbow, a penalty that drew a five-minute, illegal hit to the head penalty and a match penalty, leading to an ejection.
On the ensuing five-minute power play, Perry tucked a puck back inside the post for his first goal in 26 games. After an unsuccessful challenge for goaltender interference, Point scored with 0.1 seconds remaining in the second period on a 5-on-3 advantage to put the Lightning up 6-2. Ross Colton’s goal at the 6:59 mark in the third sent Leafs fans to the exits.
