Maple Leafs embarrassed by Lightning in fight-filled potential playoff preview

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TAMPA — Remember what they say about the playoffs: What happens in the regular season doesn’t matter.

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So perhaps keep that in mind if the Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning meet in the first round of the 2022 Stanley Cup tournament, a possibility that strengthened on Thursday night at Amalie Arena.

The Leafs were spanked rather hard in the second period by the two-time defending Cup champions, getting outscored 4-0 on the way to an embarrassing 8-1 loss, Toronto’s worst of the season.

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The Leafs missed an opportunity to clinch second place in the Atlantic Division.

They got a favor earlier in the night when the Boston Bruins were shut out in regulation by the Pittsburgh Penguins. Had the Leafs then won in regulation, second place was theirs.

Instead, Tampa moved three points up on the Bruins, increasing the likelihood it will play Toronto in the opening round. Home ice still looks good for the Leafs, who are six points up on the Lightning.

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Lightning captain Steven Stamkos scored Tampa’s third goal to become the franchise leader in points with 954, one more than Martin St. Louis.

Without Auston Matthews, who missed his third game in a row with an undisclosed injury, the Leafs didn’t have an offensive answer for the Lightning.

Matthews looked like his usual self on the ice during the Leafs’ morning skate, flying around the ice.

“He’s really close,” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. “He’s getting his touches from him, but we’re in a similar place to where we were a couple of days ago, in terms of it just not making sense to put him in the lineup at this point.”

In a penalty-filled game that had the physical attributes of a playoff series — it’s pretty clear the teams expect to hook up in the first week of May — the Lightning lit up the visitors after no goals were scored in the first.

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Simply, the Leafs haven’t had many worse periods than what happened in the second.

Alex Killorn tipped a shot past goalie Erik Kallgren at 3:54 and Ross Colton scored on a pass from Nick Paul at 12:37. Some 61 seconds later, Stamkos wired a pass from Nikita Kucherov into the net on a power play, and Tampa got its second power-play goal at 15:07 when Kucherov slipped the puck in during a goalmouth scramble.

The crowd erupted after the Stamkos goal, knowing the point was historic. During the next TV timeout, a video tribute was played, including congratulations from St. Louis.

“What else can you say about Stammer?” Tampa coach Jon Cooper said before the game. “We’ve been together a decade, so I’ve watched a lot of his points from him. Nobody would be prouder than myself to watch him break it.”

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The Leafs’ Wayne Simmonds and the Lightning’s Pat Maroon yapped at each other from the benches during the first, and fought in the final minute of the second.

Several skirmishes occurred after stoppages in play, another indication the clubs were gearing up for some post-season fun.

Kyle Clifford got a match penalty in the third for trying to jam his stick at Corey Perry’s bare head during another failure.

Andrei Vasilevskiy was sharp in the Tampa net. Ilya Mikheyev scored the Leafs goal with eight minutes gone in the third.

Ondrej Palat, Killorn, Colton and Maroon scored in the third for the Lightning.

Keefe revealed his reasoning for starting Kallgren, who is also scheduled to start in Washington on Sunday when the Leafs finish their three-game trip.

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Jack Campbell will be in goal on Saturday in Sunrise, Fla., against the Panthers.

“We looked at the schedule for the week, more specific to Jack,” Keefe said. “We worked backwards. We started with Sunday, given that the Washington game, with some of the toughest travel we have had on a back to back all season, was one game we did not want Jack to play. That led us to Jack playing against Philadelphia the other night and Kallgren (Thursday).”

As they prepared during the day, did the Leafs figure on taking mental notes considering the first-round potential?

“You definitely want to have a good team performance,” defenseman Morgan Rielly said. “If that’s how the playoffs line up, we will deal with that in a week or two.
“Tonight, we’re just worried about playing a good team game, keeping ourselves on track, getting the power play dialed in, the penalty kill, stuff like that.”

None of that happened. In the playoffs, the Leafs have to hope that doesn’t matter.

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