TAMPA, Florida (AP) The Toronto Maple Leafs quickly rebounded from a one-sided loss to move into the lead for the second NHL Eastern Conference wild-card spot by beating the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-0 on Thursday night.
Morgan Rielly and Matt Martin scored 15 seconds apart during Toronto’s four-goal second period, while Frederik Andersen made 33 saves.
Roman Polak, Connor Brown and James van Riemsdyk also scored for Toronto, which was coming off a 7-2 loss Tuesday night at Florida. With 13 regular season games to play, the Maple Leafs hold a one-point advantage over their closest wild card rivals Tampa Bay and the New York Islanders.
”A good response,” Martin said. ”We played a good first period, and obviously a big second period offensively.”
Toronto has won four of five.
Tampa Bay, 12-3-3 over its last 18 games, pulled Andrei Vasilevskiy six minutes into the second after he allowed four goals on 15 shots. The goalie had gone 6-0-1 over his previous seven games.
”Missed opportunity for us,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. ”What was missing was the defending. We’ve been so good of late.”
After Rielly scored 2:24 into the second, Martin made it 3-0 on the next shift. Brown, on the power play, and van Riemsdyk added goals later in the period.
Andersen, who entered winless with a 6.00 goals-against-average in the three losses to Tampa Bay, stopped Brayden Point’s power-play breakaway midway through the second. It was his fourth shutout this season and 10th overall.
Polak had the lone first-period goal, a blue-line shot that went off Vasilevskiy’s shoulder and bounced into the net.
Tampa Bay played for the fourth straight game without centers Tyler Johnson, Vladislav Namestnikov and Cedric Paquette, who are all out with lower-body injuries.
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