Leafs Improbable Game 4 OT Win Has Tampa On The Brink Of Elimination (maple leafs)

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Leafs Improbable Game 4 OT Win Has Tampa On The Brink Of Elimination

By Mike Augello

Apr 25, 2023 • 12:43 pm

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Anyone who has watched the Boston Bruins comeback in Game 7 in the years since 2013 has to be a bit masochistic since it served as the most painful reminder of the Toronto Maple Leafs futility in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, but those who suffered after that crushing loss had to find some solace after the Leafs improbable 5-4 overtime victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena.

The win, which put the Leafs into a commanding 3-1 lead in the first-round series, was essentially the exact opposite of the infamous TD Garden collapse, as Toronto rallied from a 4-1 deficit in the final 10 minutes of regulation, scoring three goals in a span of 6:20 to tie the game, and win it early in the extra frame on Alex Kerfoot’s deflection of a Mark Giordano shot.

Noel Acciari scored early in the second after Tampa took a 2-0 first-period lead on goals from Alex Killorn and Mikhail Sergachev. Steven Stamkos and Killorn built the lead to three goals in the middle frame, and the Lightning appeared comfortably ahead, especially since Toronto had been underwhelming at even strength and abysmal on special teams through the first 50 minutes of regulation.

“I thought we were good in the second. We obviously scored a goal to give us some life. We were feeling good. You play better, but you still lose the period. That was tough.… Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said after the game. “The message in the third period: Don’t go away. Stay with it. You are not necessarily at that point thinking you are going to come back in the game. You just want to stay there and give yourself a chance to come back in the game versus just going away and moving on to the next one.…

Auston Matthews sparked the comeback with a blast on a setup from Mitch Marner and a power play deflection less than three minutes later. Morgan Rielly then tied the game with a shot from long range that beat Andrei Vasilevskiy, and in overtime, Kerfoot (who was one of the goats early in the game with a giveaway on Sergachev’s goal) completed the comeback on another deflected long shot that got past the Lightning’s Vezina winning netminder.

“I just pushed the guys to stay with it, have a positive period, seek to win the period, and once you do that, you start chipping away and you have a chance,…Keefe said. “(Kerfoot) is an important player for the group. He is a very popular guy. The guys love him all the way through the team. He has been here. He has been through some battles with the group.…

While there are a lot of comparables between what happened to the Leafs a decade ago and Toronto’s comeback in Game 4, there are two big differences. The first is that, unlike the Bruins, the Leafs still have to win another game to advance in the playoffs for the first time in 19 years. The second is that the team they are playing does not have the likes of Jay McClement, Nikolai Kulemin, Carl Gunnarsson, and James Reimer on their roster.

The Lightning are arguably showing the wear and tear of a club that has played almost an extra season of playoff games, with key players like Victor Hedman and Brayden Point dinged up, and Erik Cernak out of the lineup. Tampa has outperformed the Leafs in three of the four games and yet are facing elimination. For Toronto to complete the job, they will have to put forth an effort more like Game 2 and extinguish all hope in the Lightning of staging a series comeback.

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