Toronto Maple Leafs right wing William Nylander scores on Tampa Bay Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy during the first period in Toronto. The Maple Leafs won 5-2 on Oct. 21, 2024.Frank Gunn/The Canadian Press
The Maple Leafs steamrolled the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-2 at Scotiabank Arena on Monday in the first of four meetings between the Atlantic Division rivals during the 2024-25 campaign.
William Nylander scored twice and Auston Matthews, Max Pacioretty and Matthew Knies each had a goal in the decisive victory.
“I think everyone contributed from top to bottom,” Knies said. “We played great and buried our chances.”
With the game tied 1-1, Toronto blew it wide open with four goals in the second period.
Anthony Stolarz, who started for the fourth time in a row and fifth in six contests, was superb in the winners’ net. He finished with 32 saves and had the crowd on its feet in the second period when he stymied Tampa Bay when it had a 5-on-3 advantage for two minutes.
Stolarz’s best stop came when he sprawled across the crease to keep a puck from crossing the goal line.
“I had him when he was a young kid in Philadelphia,” Toronto coach Craig Berube said. “He has been in the league for a long time now and he’s a quality goalie.”
Nylander, who tied his career high with 40 goals in 2023-24 and had a personal-best 98 points, leads the club with five goals and seven points through six games. He had an assist to go with the two scores.
“Sometimes they don’t go in and sometimes they do,” Nylander said. “That’s just the way the game is.”
Toronto chased Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy with 10:29 remaining in the second period. Vasilevskiy was yanked after allowing four goals on 14 shots.
With the victory the Maple Leafs improved to 4-2. They play again on Tuesday in Columbus. Tampa Bay is 3-2.
It has been a heck of a start to 2024-25 for the Lightning.
Their final preseason game was cancelled and their home opener was postponed due to Hurricane Milton.
The team, and most of the players’ families, evacuated to Raleigh, N.C., on Oct. 7, two days before the Category 3 storm made landfall about 100 kilometres south of Tampa.
The club stayed in North Carolina for the better part of a week and beat the Carolina Hurricanes in the season-opener on Oct. 11. Then they returned to central Florida and headed straight to hotels because they had no electricity at home.
“There is no doubt it has been a distraction,” Jon Cooper, the Lightning coach, said in the midst of the crisis. “There are obstacles in everything we do and it is all outside of hockey. We just have to keep our focus on what we have ahead of us.”
The Maple Leafs jumped on top early in the first period when Nylander snapped a puck past Vasilevskiy from 24 feet out. It was Nylander’s team-leading fourth goal and was scored with the help of Max Domi’s club-leading sixth assist.
Toronto dominated the play early and kept the Lightning trapped in their own end. But then the momentum shifted and Tampa Bay started to push back. Nicholas Paul tied it at 1-1 with 4:03 to go before the first intermission.
Stolarz stopped Paul on a break-away but defenceman Simon Benoit then accidentally put it in his own net four minutes before the first intermission.
“It’s part of the game,” Stolarz said of Benoit’s miscue. “It’s one of the things that happens.”
The Maple Leafs rolled up the score in the second. Matthews got the first of four goals less than two minutes in when he poked the puck through Vasilevskiy’s legs on a power play, It was his third goal in as many games. Nylander went five-hole on Vasilevskiy at the 12:27 mark, and then Pacioretty beat him over the shoulder to end his night.
Knies made it 5-1 on a break-away against back-up net minder Jonas Johansson.
Brayden Point added a power-play goal late in the third period for the Lightning.
Tit was an unusual game between division opponents in that Nikita Kucherov failed to score.
Kucherov had seven goals and nine points in Tampa Bay’s first four games. He led the NHL with 144 points last season and he regularly torches Toronto. He did have one assist on Monday.
“He’s a hell of a player,” said Christopher Tanev, the Toronto defenceman who is now three games shy of 800 for his career. “He plays the game at his own pace. He slows it down, then he speeds it up. We can’t let him dictate and control the game.”
The Maple Leafs came in 3-2 after a close loss at home to to the New York Rangers on Saturday.
Said Tanev: “We have some things we can improve on but we are playing well. We are still building our game but we are making strides.”
Joseph Woll, who has been inactive due to a groin injury, may see his first action of the season when Toronto visits the Blue Jackets to complete a back-to-back on Tuesday.
Woll was 12-11 with a. 907 start during the regular season last year and undefeated in three appearances in the playoffs before he suffered an injury.