Lightning did the one thing you absolutely cannot against Maple Leafs
TAMPA — It was one pass that led to one penalty that led to one goal. In the debris of a 7-2 Lightning playoff loss in Game 2 on Thursday night, it could easily be forgotten or dismissed.
Except it seemed to be the moment that Toronto’s fortunes changed in the opening-round series. And, perhaps ominously, it was emblematic of a problem that has plagued Tampa Bay for much of the season.
The game was not even 40 seconds old when Alex Killorn tried a cross-ice pass near the Lightning blue line and Mitch Marner jumped in front of Ian Cole and stole the puck. With nothing but clear ice between Marner and Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, Cole’s only option was taking Marner’s legs out from under him.
A penalty was called, a faceoff was won by Maple Leafs defenseman Morgan Rielly, and seven seconds later, Marner scored on a slap shot from 48 feet away. Toronto would hold a lead for the next 59:13. Marner would later say that the early goal allowed the Maple Leafs to dictate the pace the rest of the night.
So would the Maple Leafs have won Game 2 without that pass/penalty/goal? That’s certainly possible, and likely probable. Toronto was the more desperate team, the more energized team, and the Lightning were playing shorthanded without injured defensemen Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak.
Coach Jon Cooper has seethed at various times this season about the nonchalant way the Lightning sometimes handle the puck but suggested those type of defensive lapses have not been an overriding issue through the first two games of this series.
“If a team beats you, they beat you. And in the beginning (of Game 2), I thought we beat ourselves and the Leafs took advantage of it,” Cooper said. “Good on them. They’re a heck of a team, and they did what they had to do. But you can’t give them freebies. And we gave them one early. That was obviously a glaring turnover that ended up in our net.
“But that hasn’t been the story of the series. I just think our battle level in (winning) Game 1 was outstanding. I’m not sure we matched that in Game 2, and if you’re not going to do that, it’s going to be tough to win.”
There are times when, and teams for which, that kind of turnover could be dismissed as an unfortunate aberration. This season, the Lightning are not that team.
After finishing first or second in fewest giveaways in the NHL the past three seasons, the Lightning fell to 20th in 2022-23. They went from 5.5 giveaways a game last season to 9.0 this year, with Nikita Kucherov, Hedman, Killorn and Steven Stamkos all seeing increases of at least one giveaway per game.
The Lightning could survive that type of sloppiness against a lot of teams, but Toronto is not on that list. Not with Marner and Auston Matthews, William Nylander and John Tavares patrolling the rink.
“They’re good players. When you look at the way they use their sticks, they create a lot of turnovers,” Killorn said. “We’ve got to be aware of that, and especially at the start of games. You don’t want to be turning the puck over.”
It’s possible, as Cooper suggested, that the Game 2 turnover was just a blip. An isolated moment that will have little predictive quality for the rest of the series. Or it could be a reminder of the maddening brain cramps that made the regular season feel so uneven for the Lightning.
Tampa Bay became a championship-quality team in 2020 when it stopped playing a flash-and-dash type of offensive game and learned to control the puck and limit high-danger scoring chances. It’s probably not a coincidence that the Lightning gave up their most goals in the Cooper era this season.
Even more disappointing is the timing of the Game 2 blunder. After a 7-3 victory in Game 1, the Lightning had to know the Maple Leafs were going to come out aggressively Thursday.
“We knew they were going to come back with a really big effort … which needed more urgency from us in terms of the details of the game,” Stamkos told reporters after the game. “First shift, or second shift, whatever it was, just lacked the details. They got an early one and built momentum off that.”
Contact John Romano at jromano@tampabay.com. Follow @romano_tbtimes.
• • •
Sign up for Lightning Strikes, a weekly newsletter from Bolts beat writer Eduardo A. Encina that brings you closer to the ice.
Never miss out on the latest with the Bucs, Rays, Lightning, Florida college sports and more. Follow our Tampa Bay Times sports team on Twitter and Facebook.
