Toronto Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly (44) celebrates his game-winning goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning with right wing William Nylander (88) during overtime in Game 3 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series, April 22, 2023, in Tampa, Fla.Chris O'Meara/The Associated Press
The craziness continued between the Maple Leafs and Lightning in Game 3 of their first-round Stanley Cup series on Saturday night.
Morgan Rielly scored on a long shot with 45 seconds left in the first overtime to give Toronto a 4-3 victory in a wonderful, heart-stopping, hard-hitting game. The next between them in the best-of-seven set will be in Tampa on Monday night, when the Maple Leafs have a chance to take a 3-1 lead.
Game 5 is in Toronto on Thursday.
Between them, the Maple Leafs and Lightning combined to take 67 shots and 12 penalties and administered 123 hits. Mikhail Sergechev logged a game-high 37 minutes 27 seconds of ice time, followed by Toronto defenceman T.J. Brodie (32:12).
Ilya Samsonov, the Toronto goalie, made 36 saves on 39 shots. Andrei Vasilevskiy had 24 saves in 28 shots against in the opposite net.
At one point in the third period, Toronto’s star centre Auston Matthews fought with Steven Stamkos, his Tampa Bay counterpart. At the same time, the Maple Leafs Ryan O’Reilly squared off with Nikita Kucherov.
The brawls were precipitated by a play in which the Lightning’s Brayden Point chased after a puck in the corner in Toronto’s end and was checked hard into the boards by Morgan Rielly. As a scrum ensued, Point slid toward the centre of the ice, grabbed at his left rib cage, and then laid down face down.
Point, who led the Lightning with 51 goals and 95 points during the regular season, both career highs, was helped to the dressing room but did return.
Rielly was initially given a five-minute major penalty for boarding but it was wiped out after a video review. The Toronto defenceman, who went to the dressing room briefly with a bloody nose, was handed a roughing penalty for his part in the fracas.
In two previous games in Toronto, the Atlantic Division rivals combined to amass 103 penalty minutes.
Toronto had trailed 3-2 but Ryan O’Reilly beat Vasilevskiy with one minute remaining in regulation time. Samsonov, the Maple Leafs goalie, was on the bench to give the team an extra attacker.
Darren Raddysh, a defenceman who had scored only goal in 23 NHL games in his career, had given Tampa Bay a 3-2 lead with 6:26 left in the second period.
Each team won in a walkover in the first two games at Scotiabank Arena, where the Maple Leafs became only the second club in 29 years to score seven goals in one contest after allowing seven or more in the previous.
Amalie Arena, Tampa Bay’s home joint, was juiced for Game 3. Griffin Perry, whose father Corey plays for the Lightning and is one of the National Hockey League’s most polished irritants, skated around the ice before the puck drop waving a flag. During pregame festivities, the home team honoured a military veteran who completed 101 parachute jumps as part of a frogman demolition unit.
He stood with his hand over his heart during the Star Spangled Banner and after it the place went wild. It was Tampa Bay’s 328th consecutive home sellout, the longest in the league.
Right out of the gate the opponents traded goals on just three shots and at the same time a procession of players from both teams began to parade to the penalty box.
What was different this time is that they went to their dressing rooms after 20 minutes tied 2-2. In each of the first two games the outcome was decided early. This was the first close contest between them in a first-round rematch from a year ago that was won by Tampa Bay in seven games.
Noel Acciari put the Maple Leafs ahead with 16:36 left in the first period when he scored on a wrist shot with an assist from 20-year-old rookie Matthew Knies. It was Toronto’s second shot of the encounter and the first playoff point for Knies, who played in just three regular-season games after he finished his NCAA career at the University of Minnesota.
It took Anthony Cirelli less than a minute and a half to tie it at 1-1 on the Lightning’s first shot of the evening. Matthews then tipped in a shot by Mitch Marner to give the Maple Leafs their second lead but in the final minute Brandon Hagel evened it up again when he beat Samsonov in a goalmouth scramble.
Matthews put Toronto in front for a second time when he tipped a shot by Mitch Marner past Vasilevskiy with 8:50 left remaining in the first. Then Point tied it during a goalmouth scramble with just three seconds before the first intermission.
O’Reilly, the Toronto centre, expected Tampa Bay to rebound after it absorbed a 7-2 defeat on Thursday.
“A different team is going to come out,” O’Reilly said in the visiting team’s dressing room at Amalie Arena after the morning skate. “That last game was obviously not what they wanted.
“I expect a strong response from them. The challenge for us is going to be to match their intensity and physicality right away. It is going be an emotional game.”
Tampa Bay was girded with the return of gifted defenceman Victor Hedman to its lineup. Hedman, who is in his 15th season with the Lightning, was injured during the first period of Game 1 and missed Game 2. The nature of his injury was not disclosed.
The 32-year-old won the NHL award given to the best defenceman in 2018 and has been a finalist for it on four other occasions. He has played the most post-season games (156) in franchise history.
“He has been one of the best defenceman in the league for a long time now,” Alexander Kerfoot, the Toronto forward, said. “He can do it at both ends of the ice. He is one of those guys nobody wants to play against.’’
Tampa Bay was still without defenceman Erik Cernak, who suffered a head injury in Game 1 when he was struck with an elbow to the face from Michael Bunting.
The latter was suspended for three games for an illegal check to the head and is not eligible to return to the Maple Leafs’ lineup until Game 5.
“We can’t think about who is in or who is out of their lineup,” Mark Giordano, Toronto’s 39-year-old defender, said before hand. “Hedman has been one of the best in the league for more than 10 years now for a reason. You can’t get into the what-ifs. You just have to think about your own game.”
Tampa Bay jumped on Toronto at the start of the series opener, and then Toronto returned the favour in Game 2. The Maple Leafs have not won a playoff series since 2004 and have been eliminated in the first round of the post-season for six straight seasons.
A year ago, they led the best-of-seven matchup but the Lightning won the final two contests between them to advance to the second round.
Tampa Bay has won two of the last three Stanley Cup and reached the finals before it lost to Colorado in 2022. The Maple Leafs have not won the Stanley Cup since 1967.
“We feel good coming out of that last game but we have been through enough to know it won’t be easy,” Sheldon Keefe, the Toronto coach, said. “In Game 1 of the series we were horrible. The message we have given to the team is that we have to continue to play better. You try to improve a little every game. That is what is required. You can’t take a step back.”