*Photo from Bay News 9*
Toronto leads series 3-1
Is this year finally the year for these guys? Auston Matthews scored two goals, Alex Kerfoot scored the winning goal, and the Toronto Maple Leafs rallied to beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-4 in overtime on Monday in Tampa Bay.
The Maple Leafs entered the 3rd period facing a 4-1 deficit, only to storm back and win their second game on the road. They earned a commanding 3-1 series lead as a result, sitting one win away from something that has eluded them for quite a long time: the second round of the playoffs.
Toronto head coach Sheldon Keefe said "I hope that we look at this as a positive sign of the spirit of our team and what we can overcome. I hope they take that and recognize that we have to keep pushing. The team we found a way to beat tonight, they are who they are because they very rarely lose two in a row, obviously don't lose three in a row very often and winning four in a row is going to be even harder. That's not lost on us."
The win goes down as the 3rd in a row for the Maple Leafs after trailing 1-0 in the series. They got two goals from Matthews, two assists from Ryan O'Reilly, Mark Giordano, and Mitch Marner to go with 3 assists from William Nylander.
Starting the scoring was Alex Killorn, making it 1-0 Lightning on the power play 9:57 into the game, assisted by Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov. With 1:33 left in the first, it was Mikhail Sergachev who scored, doubling the Lightning lead to 2-0 after one with assists going to Kucherov and Brayden Point.
Noel Acciari got the Maple Leafs on the board to open up the second period, scoring 4:51 into the second, cutting the deficit to 2-1. Steven Stamkos got the goal back for the Lightning, making it a 3-1 game. With 1:11 left in the period, Killorn found the back of the net for the second time, making the score 4-1 after two periods.
Matthews scored 9:44 into the 3rd period for the Maple Leafs, cutting the deficit to 4-2. He then made it a 4-3 game with a power play goal at the 12:29 mark of the 3rd. Morgan Rielly then tied the game 4-4 and forced overtime with his second goal of the playoffs. On the power play 4:14 into overtime, Kerfoot won the game for the Maple Leafs to complete the comeback.
Kerfoot said of his goal "That's what you dream about, scoring goals in overtime in the playoffs. There was a lot of belief in that room after the first two periods. We started to put the heat on them a little bit and our big guys came through and got it to overtime."
Starting in goal for the Maple Leafs was Ilya Samsonov, who picked up his 3rd straight win of the series. Samsonov stopped 27 of the 31 shots the Lightning sent at him, posting a .871 save percentage in the win.
It was the usual suspect known as Andrei Vasilevskiy in net for the Lightning, taking his 3rd straight loss. Vasilevskiy turned away 32 out of the 37 shots on goal from the Maple Leafs, recording a .865 save percentage.
Killorn said of the loss that "This is a difficult one to process at the moment. Having that lead and letting it slip away is tough, but we've got to get over it. They're a good team and their big-time players came through in a big way and I think we just sat back too much. We were a little too comfortable with that lead."
Up next, game 5 of the series is back in Toronto on Thursday night. The Maple Leafs will look to secure a spot in the second round of the playoffs, while the Lightning need to win to stay alive and force a game 6 on home ice.
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