JOLT FROM BOLTS
Tampa Bay downs Leafs in shootout to put an end to their four-game winning streak
TAMPA — New-look Maple Leafs, but not the same old result.
With Tomas Plekanec making his Leafs debut and representing the lone acquisition general manager Lou Lamoriello made before the NHL trade deadline hit, the Leafs were unable to play with consistency against the club atop the league standings, losing 4-3 in a shootout to the Tampa Bay Lightning on Monday night at Amalie Arena.
Brayden Point scored the only goal in the shootout in a game that might have been a preview of a first-round matchup.
The Leafs’ four-game winning streak ended, and they lost for just the third time in 16 games.
Tyler Bozak had scored the tying goal at 5:27 of the third, beating Andrei Vasilevskiy on the short side after the Leafs moved the puck around on the power play.
With the game tied 3-3, Mitch Marner was awarded a penalty shot with six minutes remaining, but was stopped by Vasilevskiy on a forehand deke.
Down 2-1 entering the second period, the Lightning scored a pair of goals to take a 3-2 lead into the second intermission.
The go-ahead goal by Adam Erne at 15:18 was one that had Frederik Andersen wincing. After Roman Polak and William Nylander couldn’t team up to clear the puck, Erne took control and beat Andersen along the ice from the high slot.
Andersen has not given up many weak goals this season. That was one.
Not long after the Erne goal, the Leafs nearly scored when a shot got through Vasilevskiy and rolled across the goal line, but did not cross it. Marner nearly poked the puck in before it was knocked away by a Tampa defender.
Tyler Johnson tied the game at 3:52 when he got his own rebound, swept around the net and scored as Polak, in front, was slow to respond.
It didn’t help the Leafs’ cause that they were unable to score during a two-man advantage that lasted 46 seconds. Morgan Rielly hit the post, but Toronto go no closer to scoring.
Tampa’s Chris Kunitz opened the scoring at 1:41 of the first period when he deflected an Andrej Sustr shot past Andersen.
The Toronto goals came one minute three seconds apart, and like Kunitz’s goal, were off deflections.
James van Riemsdyk scored his 26th at 8:49, getting his stick on a Ron Hainsey shot enough to redirect the puck between Vasilevskiy’s legs.
At 9:52, Marner continued his hot ways when Jake Gardiner’s pass went off Marner’s skate and slipped past Vasilevskiy. The goal was
Marner’s 12th in 18 games after he had gone nine games in a row without scoring. It also was Marner’s 12th since Jan. 20, tied for the second-most in the NHL in that span after Pittsburgh’s Evgeni Malkin, who has 15.
With two assists, Rielly hit 37 points, setting a career high.
Tampa lost NHL leading scorer Nikita Kucherov, meanwhile, to an upper-body injury in the first period.
As much as Leafs coach Mike Babcock is fine with the Leafs roster as it stands now, he would have been just as fine had Lamoriello made another trade on Monday. Instead, Lamoriello did not make a transaction after bringing in Plekanec, though the GM was hoping to make an addition to the blueline.
How much was Babcock in contact with Lamoriello as the hours to the deadline diminished?
“Lou and I talk all the time,” Babcock said after the morning skate. “Today when I phone him I hope it’s busy and he doesn’t answer.”
And if nothing further was done, which is how it turned out?
“What you do is you hope and you push and you do all those things you can,” Babcock said. “But in the end you make a decision together as a group and then whatever lineup is, it’s the lineup you have and you get on with it.
“We like our hockey club. We liked our hockey club before (Sunday), we like our hockey club now.”
So, too, does Tampa general manager Steve Yzerman, whose big splash as the deadline approached will be felt for the next several months.
In acquiring defenceman Ryan McDonagh and forward J.T. Miller from the New York Rangers for a package that included Vladislav Namestnikov, Yzerman made the NHL’s top team that much better.
“You notice what’s going on around you,” Yzerman said. “Pittsburgh, Boston, they made deals that made them better and Toronto did too with Plekanec.
“But it wasn’t a question of keeping up with the Joneses for us. We were just looking to improve our own team. We think we’ve done that.”