Toronto Maple Leafs centre Noel Acciari (52) celebrates his goal against the Tampa Bay Lightning during the second period in Game 4 of an NHL hockey Stanley Cup first-round playoff series, in Tampa, Fla., Monday, April 24, 2023. THE CANADIAN PRESS/AP-Chris O'Meara
TAMPA, Fla. – Alexander Kerfoot scored on a power play at 4:14 of overtime as the Toronto Maple Leafs roared back from a 4-1 deficit in the third period to defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-4 on Monday and take a commanding 3-1 lead in their first-round playoff series.
With Mikaeil Sergachev in the penalty box for tripping, Kerfoot tipped a Mark Giordano point shot for his first goal of the series and move the Leafs to within one victory of their first series victory since 2004.
Auston Matthews, with two goals, Morgan Rielly and Noel Acciari also scored for Toronto. Ilya Samsonov made 27 stops for the Leafs, who improved to 2-17 over their last 19 post-season contests when leading a series.
William Nylander had three assists, while Mitch Marner and Ryan O’Reilly each had two for Toronto, which famously botched a 4-1 lead in the third period of Game 7 against the Boston Bruins in 2013 before losing in OT.
Alex Killorn scored twice for Tampa, while Sergachev, with a goal and an assist, and Steven Stamkos provided the rest of the offence. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 32 shots. Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman each added two assists.
The teams have two days off before Game 5 of the best-of-seven matchup, which goes Thursday in Toronto. Game 6, if necessary, will be back in Tampa – which downed the Leafs in seven games in last spring’s first round – on Saturday.
Down 4-1 entering the third and looking like a team ready to answer more tough questions about its lack of killer instinct, the Leafs finally started to push back and got within two at 9:44 when Matthews scored his second of the series.
The star centre added another on a power play at 12:29 with a redirection of a Nylander shot.
Rielly, who scored in OT in Game 3 to give Toronto a 4-3 victory, and was booed every time he touched the puck after hitting Brayden Point into the boards on a clean, but awkward sequence Saturday, completed the comeback with 3:56 left in regulation when his shot beat Vasilevskiy.
The stunning turn of events sparked wild celebrations among pockets of Leafs fans inside Amalie Arena.
The series has seen a significant rise in tensions compared to the team’s previous playoff meeting – with plenty of nastiness between and after the whistles – including a fracas two nights earlier with Point down injured that saw Stamkos and Matthews drop the gloves.
Toronto head coach Sheldon Keefe and Tampa counterpart Jon Cooper have also jousted in the media, while Leafs general manager Kyle Dubas got into a heated argument with a group of fans during Game 3 at Amalie Arena.
The Lightning, who the Stanley Cup in both 2020 and 2021 before falling to Colorado in last year’s final, got a short-handed penalty shot at 7:45 of the first, but Samsonov made a pad stop on Brandon Hagel.
Tampa would connect on a power play of its own at 9:57 when Killorn finished a pretty passing play off a Kucherov feed at the lip of Toronto’s crease.
The home side, which was the far superior team Saturday despite the final score, doubled its lead at 18:27 after Kerfoot was stripped of the puck by Point. The Lightning’s 51-goal man quickly passed to Kucherov, who in turn found Sergachev for him to snap a shot past Samsonov.
Aiming to avenge last spring’s loss to Tampa after also leading that series 2-1, the Leafs shuffled three of their four line combinations and then cut the deficit in half at 4:51 of the second when Acciari tipped a Justin Holl point shot after O’Reilly stripped Kucherov.
Leafs rookie Matthew Knies cleared the puck off the goal line on a wild scramble moments later, but the Lightning made it 3-1 at 11:31 when Hedman’s shot hit Stamkos and ricocheted in.
Killorn put Tampa up three with 1:11 left in the period when he fired a perfect shot upstairs on Samsonov that went off the post and in for his second of the night and the series before Toronto, which hasn’t advanced in the post-season since 2004, responded in the third.
HEDDY PLAY
Hedman’s 25th career multi-point playoff game tied him with Sergei Zubov for 11th on the all-time list for defencemen.
Kucherov and Hedman factored on the same playoff goal – Killorn’s first – for the 41st time in their careers, the third-highest total by a forward-defenceman tandem in NHL history. Wayne Gretzky and Paul Coffey (51 times) rank first ahead of Mike Bossy and Denis Potvin (49 times).
STANDING TALL
Samsonov is the second Leafs goaltender to stop a post-season penalty shot. Felix Potvin denied Chicago forward Patrick Poulin in Game 2 of the 1995 Western Conference quarterfinals.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published April 24, 2023.
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