TORONTO – The Tampa Bay Lightning scored four power-play goals in a 7-3 win against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Scotiabank Arena yesterday.
“I will never question the guys in that room, and again, as the coach, you always want the best, but deep down inside you know there’s a whole bunch of gamers in that room and this night we knew they would come out to play,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said.
Corey Perry and Nikita Kucherov each had a goal and two assists, Brayden Point scored twice, Anthony Cirelli and Ross Colton each had a goal and an assist and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves for the Lightning, who are the No. 3 seed in the Atlantic Division and have been to the Stanley Cup Final each of the past three seasons, winning it in 2020 and 2021.
Tampa Bay had gone 4-8-0 in their final 12 regular-season games and 14-15-5 in their last 34.
“We had a tough March, tough end to the season, but it’s about playoffs and we were trying to get our game into shape to come in here and play,” Perry said. “We know what we have to do, how we have to play as a team. We did a lot of good things tonight, but at the same time, we still have some stuff to work on.”
Source: https://www.nhl.com/news/