Hedman was a game-time decision entering Thursday with an undisclosed injury. Tampa Bay entered Game 2 up 1-0 in the series after a 7-3 road victory over Toronto on Tuesday. As a result, even though not every goal was on Vasilevskiy alone, he did allow six goals on 28 goals through the first two periods.Īdd it all up and everything that could have gone right for the Leafs did, and the series is now tied. With those two defensemen out of the lineup, the Leafs had so much more room with the puck to manipulate defenders off the rush and with their cycle game. The Leafs lost the goalie battle in Game 1, but Game 2 featured, once again, a completely different look: without the likes of key defensemen Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak due to injury, Andrei Vasilevskiy didn’t get the help he needed in front of him and he hardly looked like the all-world goaltender he is. Kloke Vasilevskiy and the Lightning defense looked beatable
They did in Game 2, and the results speak for themselves. In past playoff series’ the entire core hasn’t always shown up at the same time. The Lightning simply had little answer for the core’s ability to play through traffic and create chances.Īgain, the Leafs’ core’s ability to play to their potential is going to be a storyline throughout the season. Of the five goals the core combined for, only one came on the power play. They were slick in transition and effective and dominant with the puck in the offensive zone, playing with, you guessed it, almost no hesitation.
Tavares led the charge with his first playoff hat trick. In Game 2, Matthews, Marner, Tavares, Nylander and Rielly took this team on their backs and combined for an impressive 14 points. Outside of Auston Matthews, none of the Leafs’ high-powered core played to their potential in game 1. That they could turn the page on game 1 so quickly was important. There was literally no hesitation in the Leafs’ play in Game 2. One of the most telling assessments of the Leafs’ ugly Game 1 performance came from Ryan O’Reilly: “We just had a little hesitation in our game, we were thinking a little too much,” he said.
They made efforts to get in front of every shot to protect Ilya Samsonov and play with urgency in their defending and puck movement that was absent in Game 1. It wasn’t just the offensive production, though, that saw the Leafs coming out to play. Tavares and Nylander added two more goals in the period, equalling Tampa’s total in Game 1. Marner confidently and calmly fired home a power-play goal with a slap shot 47 seconds into the game, which sent a buzz throughout the Scotiabank Arena that didn’t really dissipate, well, at all. And in Game 2, the Leafs did what they had to do by flipping the script with one of their most impressive periods of the season.
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