TAMPA, FL – Braden Point scored in the 18:04 overtime when Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 4-3 on Thursday to force a seventh and decisive game in their first-round playoff series.
The winger buried the winner in a rebound between the legs of Leafs goalkeeper Jack Campbell after Alex Kilorn made the initial blow.
Ondrej Palat, Anthony Sirelli and Nikita Kucherov had the other goals for the two-time defenders of the Stanley Cup, who improved to the outstanding 17-0 after losing after the 2020 season.
Andrei Vasilevski stopped 30 shots. Point also had an assist for the night with two points.
John Tavares with two and Austin Matthews played for Toronto, which has not advanced to the second round since 2004 and is now 0-8 in the elimination matches in the last five playoffs.
Jack Campbell made 31 saves. William Nilander added two assists.
The leaves will now be back for Saturday’s Match 7, desperate to drive out the demons of past spring failures with the weight of history and expectations hanging around their collective neck. Match 7 will be on Saturday night in Toronto and can be watched on CBC, Sportsnet and SN NOW.
Toronto is 7-2 at home in Game 7, but lost to Scotiabank Arena last season after making a 3-1 lead in the series against the Montreal Canadiens.
Vassilevski won each of the races that set the Tampa record 17-0 after losing in the last three playoffs, making a 0.945 percent save with five breaks in 16 wins before Thursday.
The winner of the Vezina Trophy for 2019 and the winner of the trophy Conn Smythe last season was not his usual star in the series _ his save rate was 0.880 at the beginning of Thursday _, but he did enough tonight to lead his team in match 7.
Leaving 2-0 in the second period after Sirelli’s effort with short drums with Tampa, Matthews _ named one of the three Hart Trophy finalists as the NHL MVP earlier in the day _ responded with his fourth of the playoffs 54 seconds later when he directed Mark Giordano’s point.
Tavares then equalized at 33.7 seconds before the end of the period, when Vassilevski failed to control the rebound, as Jason Speza hit the fluttering puck before it bounced over the goal line.
The Toronto captain then gave his team _ which also battled a 2-0 deficit at home to win Game 5 4-3 _ their first lead of the evening with 7.8 seconds left on the clock when he bury your third after many games in the stunning Amalie Arena.
Lightning took the lead by two in 1:45 in the middle of the third, when David Kampf and Alexander Kerfut were booed for high scoring in a quick sequence, and Kucherov equalized at 9:20 when he shot his second against Campbell.
Leafs complained that the chin strap of the Tampa striker at Brayden Point had been disengaged during the series, but the goal remained.
Brandon Heigl then had a great chance to give Tampa the lead at the end of the regulation, but he missed the net from close to Campbell at his mercy.
Toronto had some great chances at the beginning of overtime, but Vassilevski was there to deny both Kerfut and Ilya Mikheev.
After their goal was broken early on the same ice in Game 4 on the road to a 7-3 loss, the Leafs had a decent start, but broke up with the teams playing 4-on-4 at the end of the first.
Kerfut made an unintentional fall in the neutral zone against anyone. Palat jumped in the direction and headed for Campbell before shooting his third of the playoffs under Campbell’s blocker with 2:22 by the end of the period.
Tampa won the first powerful game of the match with 28 seconds left in the period, but the Leafs survived and reached the intermission, although Lightning captain Stephen Stamkos rubbed Campbell’s mask with an unfair one-shot.
Vassilevski made big stops for Ilya Lyubushkin and Matthews in the rebound at the beginning of the second, before the Leafs got their first powerful game.
But it was Lightning that struck a man when Cirelli picked up the puck after a reversal by Mark Giordano – Toronto’s second major mistake of the evening – and moved into the offensive zone. The center of Tampa moved one-on-one against Giordano and used a rotation of the frame to create space before shooting low on Campbell for his first of the series at 10:46.
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