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The narrative for Toronto Maple Leafs entering the Stanley Cup Playoffs was to not have what happened last May against Montreal occur again. Auston Matthews led the NHL with 41 goals last season and Mitch Marner finished in the top five with 67 points, but them being non-factors after Game 2 of the series was one of the primary reasons why Toronto lost to the underdog Habs in seven games.
12 months later, the Leafs dynamic duo have followed up great regular seasons with equally impressive starts to the postseason, but unlike last year, Toronto is struggling to get secondary scoring and will have to rectify that situation if they are going to prevail against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of their best-of-seven series at Amalie Arena on Friday.
Marner and Matthews followed up three-point performances in Game 1 with two more in a 5-3 loss to Tampa on Wednesday and through two games account for 50% of Toronto’s goals, but if Tampa is successful in limiting the Leafs top line’s production with the last change at home, Toronto will need to find offense elsewhere to retake the home-ice advantage.
Other than Jake Muzzin’s long shot in the first period of Game 1 and Alex Kerfoot’s short-handed goal in Game 2, every goal has been scored or set up by Matthews or Marner. Team captain John Tavares has performed well in the faceoff circle (78.6%), but has one assist on the power play in two games, while William Nylander is pointless.
Following an undisciplined outing in Game 2, in which Toronto gave Tampa seven opportunities on the man advantage, Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe is tinkering with his lineup for Game 3, opting for more skill and speed instead of going head-to-head with the Lightning’s more physical nature, and hoping that the officials continue to call penalties as if it was the regular season.
Nylander is being reunited with Tavares and Ondrej Kase (who did not participate in the morning skate, but is expected to play), Alex Kerfoot and Ilya Mikheyev shift to the third line with David Kampf, and veteran Jason Spezza replaces the more physical Wayne Simmonds with Pierre Engvall and Colin Blackwell. On defense, the Leafs are opting for more size and experience with Justin Holl on the bottom pairing with Mark Giordano.
Tampa head coach Jon Cooper indicated that the Lightning will go with the same lineup as Game 2.
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