Lightning advance as Leafs’ drought goes on

Nick Paul scored twice, including an incredible individual effort on the tiebreaking goal late in the second period, and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 2-1 in Game 7 on Saturday night to win their first-round playoff series.

Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 30 shots for the twotime defending Stanley Cup champions.

Morgan Rielly scored for Toronto, which hasn’t reached the second round since 2004 and is now 0-9 in elimination games over the last five postseasons after also losing 4-3 in Game 6 at Tampa, Fla., two nights earlier. Jack Campbell had 23 saves. The Maple Leafs were once again unable to push through and finally flip a long, ugly narrative of playoff failures for a franchise that has now lost its last seven series, including six straight dating to 2017.

Down 1-0 after 20 minutes in this one, the Maple Leafs appeared to tie the score at 11:28 of the second when John Tavares roofed a shot on Vasilevskiy, but the goal was waved off after Toronto defenseman Justin Holl was whistled for interference.

Campbell had to make a couple of desperation stops on the ensuing penalty kill to set the stage for Rielly’s equalizer off a setup from Mitch Marner and Auston Matthews to score his third of the playoffs at 6:35.

at Carolina 3, Boston 2:

Max Domi scored twice in the second period while Antti Raanta had 27 saves to help the Hurricanes reach the second round against either the Rangers or the Penguins.

Teuvo Teravainen also scored for the Hurricanes, who finally put away a Bruins team that had ousted them from the playoffs in two of the last three postseasons.