The final score looks close. The road to get there was not.
The Tampa Bay Lightning absolutely dominated the Toronto Maple Leafs on their way to a 3-2 victory at Amalie Arena on Monday night. The textbook performance led to Tampa’s 23rd victory of the season, which puts the Bolts squarely at the top of the Atlantic Division with 50 points.
After playing in Florida against the Panthers on Sunday night, the Leafs stormed to Tampa with far less thunder than one might expect from a team fighting for a playoff spot. It’s no secret that the Leafs are a dismal possession team, but what fans witnessed in this game was especially bad. For evidence, take a look at the following Corsi chart:
Monday's 5v5 Corsi chart for #TBLightning/TML night courtesy of @HockeyStatsCa. You might say the better team won. pic.twitter.com/8rTfQMJKeu
— Michael Stuart (@hockeybuzzstu) December 30, 2014With all that in mind, anyone who didn’t watch the game is probably ready to ask the following question: How on earth was this a one-goal game?
It’s a good question. The answer lies with two early first period breakdowns.
On their first two shots of the hockey game, the Maple Leafs were able to beat Ben Bishop. This despite the fact that they were being outplayed. This despite the fact that they had exactly zero momentum.
Mike Santorelli got the scoring started just 4:28 into the game with his eighth of the season, and Joffrey Lupul doubled the Toronto advantage about three minutes later with his ninth. Two small defensive miscues resulted in goals against, and the Lightning found themselves down by a pair of goals.
At the end of the first period, the shot clock read 15-4 in favor of Tampa Bay. The score, as mentioned, was 2-0 Toronto. Many teams would have folded at that point. It would have been easy to feel defeated and lose interest after a period like that. But the Bolts didn’t. The Bolts stuck to their game plan and continued to pepper the Leafs.
It paid off.
Ryan Callahan got the Lightning on the board with his 12th of the year at 6:37 of the second. The power play goal, assisted by Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, was virtually unstoppable for James Reimer. Callahan was able to bat the puck out of midair in front of the net with Derek Jeter-like precision.
Valtteri Filppula tied the game up at two about three minutes later when he had a Victor Hedman shot deflect off his skate and into the Toronto net; a second assist was credited to Ryan Callahan. The result was a 2-2 game with all the momentum in Tampa’s court.
In the midst of all that, the Maple Leafs were virtually dormant. I don’t mean that figuratively. There was just nothing from the road team. They had been suffocated.
Toronto officially went 19:29 between shots on goal from 9:44 of 1st period to 9:03 of the 2nd period
— Erik Erlendsson (@erlendssonTBO) December 30, 2014After losing four of five on a pre-Christmas road trip, the Lightning have since responded with three straight victories. They’ll have a chance to make it four on Wednesday night in Buffalo where they’ll take on the Sabres.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter.