The Tampa Bay Lightning fell to the Toronto Maple Leafs 5-2 in Monday night’s critical Atlantic Division match-up. In what was likely a first-round preview, the Lightning wasn’t up to the task against a hungry Maple Leafs team trying to lift years of failure off their shoulders. Nikita Kucherov and Jan Rutta scored for Tampa Bay. Pierre Engvall, Auston Matthews (x3), Alex Kerfoot, and Mitch Marner scored for Toronto. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 33 of 39 shots, while Jack Campbell stopped 32 of 34.
There are no easy games at this juncture of the season, especially for a two-time defending champion team.