Maple Leafs Blow Three-Goal Lead In Tampa
"The first 35:41 of tonight's game went quite well for the Toronto Maple Leafs, but they took their foot off the gas and ultimately blew a 3-0 lead in a 4-3 loss to the first place Tampa Bay Lightning.
There have been few players hotter than James van Riemsdyk these days and he struck again for the only goal of the first period. With just under five minutes remaining in the opening frame, the Maple Leafs had an extra skater on the ice because of a delayed penalty. Mitch Marner found van Riemsdyk in the slot where he shot back to his left to beat Andrei Vasilevskiy to the stick side. Connor Carrick picked up the secondary assist on JVR's 32nd goal of the season and 12th in the last 15 games.
Van Riemsdyk struck again to double the Leafs lead, while on the power play, 1:29 into the second period. This time, van Riemsdyk got to a rebound off a Tyler Bozak shot in front in net and roofed a backhand shot over Vasilevskiy. Nazem Kadri was credited with the secondary assist.
Zach Hyman gave the Leafs a three-goal lead at 15:41 by stealing a pass in the offensive zone and then sniping the puck into the Bolts' net from the slot for his 14th goal of the year.
Victor Hedman gave the home team some life by getting Tampa Bay on the board a minute later. The Norris Trophy candidate took a pass from Steven Stamkos in the high slot, skated to the left dot with Kadri draped on him and beat Frederik Andersen with a nasty wrist shot.
Ryan McDonagh's second goal with the Lightning cut the Leafs lead to 3-2 just 1:24 into the third period. With the Leafs getting caught in a bad line change, the former Rangers captain skated into high slot where he beat Andersen to the stop corner with a pretty wrist shot.
Just over two minutes later, Hart Trophy candidate Nikita Kucherov tied the game. Kucherov just threw the puck towards the net from the right corner and it hit off of the skate of Morgan Rielly and went right between the legs of Andersen for his 37th goal of the year.
Alex Killorn scored the game winning goal at 9:14 of the third period as he received a great pass from Anthony Cirelli in the slot and fired a one-timer past Andersen.
Things will not get any easier for the Maple Leafs as they go from playing the top team in the Eastern Conference to playing the top team in the Western Conference Thursday night. Hopefully they will get some of their injured player back on the ice against the Nashville Predators."
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