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TAMPA — Dropping is comprehensible. Dropping like this isn’t.
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The 2-time Stanley Cup champion Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t simply beat the Maple Leafs at a crazed Amalie Enviornment on Sunday night time. It stomped on their hearts. It took their breath away. It made them seem like playoff imposters.
It blitzed the Leafs from starting to finish, from the surface and in and Toronto had no reply, no pushback, no struggle, and no technique of any variety in a 7-3 Sport 4 shellacking by the Lightning.
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The ultimate rating truly flatters the Leafs.
The sport didn’t in any method.
Sunday night time started badly for Toronto, ended badly, and within the between wasn’t a lot to see both. There was barely a glimpse of something resembling satisfaction, something resembling effort, or a willingness to compete at a degree essential to advance anyplace within the Stanley Cup playoffs.
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This loss was that full, that nasty, that disheartening. And it was additionally that sure. And this best-of-seven collection is now tied at two video games apiece but it surely positive doesn’t really feel that method. It feels as if coach Jon Cooper has solved the Leafs, discovered the reply each playoff collection requires, developing with the system by which to assault his opponent. He talked slightly about it on Saturday. He mentioned he didn’t fear about what Toronto may do: After which his group demonstrated why.
That was going to occur on offence. And now the Lightning doesn’t look like heading for obvious defeat, even with the collection now lowered to a better of three with the knockout sufferer Leafs wobbling with mouths open, on the ropes.
On the ice, the Lightning owned the scoreboard, the boards the free pucks, the pucks behind the web, all of it predicated on its quickness and bodily play — two areas by which the Leafs got here up horribly brief Sunday night time.
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This was a group defeat. The Lightning performed a terrific sport and nearly all people on the Leafs didn’t. The membership acquired blitzed. The teaching employees acquired blitzed. Beginning goaltender Jack Campbell acquired blitzed and he would have been pulled after giving up the fourth aim had the Leafs been outfitted with an satisfactory backup goalie. As an alternative, coach Sheldon Keefe waited till Tampa’s fifth aim earlier than making the change.
Campbell allowed 5 targets on 16 photographs. On three of these targets, a collection of errors have been made earlier than the puck even acquired to him. One he ought to have caught. One he ought to have cleared. He was no completely different than everybody taking part in round him. No one dealt with the puck with something resembling urgency, or a capability to deal with stress.
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However the errors started earlier than the sport started. This was a type of old-style Chicago Stadium video games, the place the visiting group needed to climate the primary 5 minutes of crazed noise to get by way of the night time. Doubtful defenceman Justin Holl was a curious beginning lineup selection by Keefe and didn’t get by way of the primary minute unscathed. Neither did the group.
Holl gave the puck away no less than 3 times on his first shift — he was a part of the storm — earlier than Steven Stamkos scored his first aim of the collection on an ideal move by the proper passing Nikita Kucherov. Why Keefe would select to begin his weakest defenceman to begin the sport— that’s one thing he’ll be pressured to elucidate right now and perhaps tomorrow.
The primary mistake was made in filling out the beginning lineup. The remaining simply adopted. When a 20-goal scorer like Pat Maroon blows previous an obvious all-star like Morgan Rielly on defence, nicely, it’s not going to be your night time. Maroon has had 20 targets the previous three seasons. That was simply a part of the jaw-dropping, mistake-filled, night time for the Leafs.
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The Leafs trailed 5-0 simply over 25 minutes into the sport. If this was a struggle, which it wasn’t, it may have been stopped then. Now it’s a best-of-three.
Toronto has been on this place earlier than — simply by no means in opposition to an opponent of this high quality. This isn’t Montreal they’re taking part in. This isn’t Columbus. This can be doable however it could even be unbelievable. These are the fricking Stanley Cup champions we’re speaking about.
The Leafs didn’t play the sport — they chased it. “We knew it was coming,” mentioned captain John Tavares. That’s what’s most worrisome right now.
They knew it was coming and had nothing resembling a solution.
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