Toronto Maple Leafs end five-game skid dominating Tampa Bay Lightning 3-1 -NHL Update
Toronto managed to keep their playoff hopes alive as the Maple Leafs dominated Tampa Bay Lightning, 3-1, on Thursday night, March 15, 2012, at the Tampa Bay Times Forum in Florida.
Dwayne Roloson and Dustin Tokarski had to play shifts in the Lightning net to keep Toronto out as the latter young goalie failed to block three of 10 shots. Roloson came into the matchup and managed to block all 18 remaining attempts.
James Reimer kept Toronto alive throughout the contest as he blocked 34 of 35 attempts for an impressive .971 save percentage.
"When you look at our goalie, he was our best player," Toronto coach, Randy Carlyle, said about Remier.
Maple Leafs finally managed to stop losing and pick up some extremely crucial points as Toronto was on a five-game losing streak entering the contest. Tampa Bay was expected to set the stage coming out of a 6-1 victory against defending Stanley Cup champions,
Boston Bruins, but failed to keep the motor running.
"Anytime you're losing it's never fun," Toronto defenseman, Jake Gardiner, said. "We're just trying to stay positive. It really feels good to get a win here. It will boost us and hopefully we can keep going."
John-Michael Liles kicked off the scoring with his sixth of the 2011-2012 National Hockey League (NHL) regular season on the power play with Brian Lee called for interference nine seconds into the opener.
Joey Crabb fired off the second straight for Toronto followed by Jake Gardiner for his fifth of the year, both assisted by Matthew Lombardi.
Martin St. Louis scored the first and only for Tampa Bay, but with less than 30 seconds remaining till the final buzzer sounded, it was practically useless for the Lightning as they still remained down by two.
"We were able to draw a penalty at the seven-second mark, and our power play scored a big goal for us," Carlyle said about the first goal of the night by Liles. "It got things going our way, and we played more of the type of road game that is required."
Maple Leafs continue to play on the road as they have the next against Ottawa, but it is expected that the Senators will easily grab the win on Saturday.
Tampa Bay will be hosting a heated St. Louis team on the same day.
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