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TAMPA — Shedding is comprehensible. Shedding 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 evening. It stomped on their hearts. It took their breath away. It made them appear like playoff imposters.
It blitzed the Leafs from starting to finish, from the surface and in and Toronto had no reply, no pushback, no combat, and no technique of any type 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 evening 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 pleasure, something resembling effort, or a willingness to compete at a stage 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 sequence is now tied at two video games apiece nevertheless it certain doesn’t really feel that method. It feels as if coach Jon Cooper has solved the Leafs, discovered the reply each playoff sequence requires, arising with the method during which to assault his opponent. He talked a bit about it on Saturday. He mentioned he didn’t fear about what Toronto would possibly do: After which his staff demonstrated why.
That was going to occur on offence. And now the Lightning doesn’t look like heading for obvious defeat, even with the sequence 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 online, all of it predicated on its quickness and bodily play — two areas during which the Leafs got here up horribly quick Sunday evening.
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This was a staff defeat. The Lightning performed a terrific sport and nearly all people on the Leafs didn’t. The membership received blitzed. The teaching employees received blitzed. Beginning goaltender Jack Campbell received blitzed and he would have been pulled after giving up the fourth aim had the Leafs been outfitted with an sufficient backup goalie. As an alternative, coach Sheldon Keefe waited till Tampa’s fifth aim earlier than making the change.
Campbell allowed 5 objectives on 16 photographs. On three of these objectives, a sequence of errors had been made earlier than the puck even received to him. One he ought to have caught. One he ought to have cleared. He was no completely different than everybody enjoying 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 staff needed to climate the primary 5 minutes of crazed noise to get by way of the evening. Doubtful defenceman Justin Holl was a curious beginning lineup alternative by Keefe and didn’t get by way of the primary minute unscathed. Neither did the staff.
Holl gave the puck away a minimum of 3 times on his first shift — he was a part of the storm — earlier than Steven Stamkos scored his first aim of the sequence on an ideal go by the proper passing Nikita Kucherov. Why Keefe would select to start out his weakest defenceman to start out the sport— that’s one thing he’ll be compelled to clarify right now and possibly tomorrow.
The primary mistake was made in filling out the beginning lineup. The remainder simply adopted. When a 20-goal scorer like Pat Maroon blows previous an obvious all-star like Morgan Rielly on defence, nicely, you already know it’s not going to be your evening. Maroon has had 20 objectives the previous three seasons. That was simply a part of the jaw-dropping, mistake-filled, evening for the Leafs.
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The Leafs trailed 5-0 simply over 25 minutes into the sport. If this was a combat, which it wasn’t, it might have been stopped then. Now it’s a best-of-three.
Toronto has been on this place earlier than — simply by no means towards an opponent of this high quality. This isn’t Montreal they’re enjoying. This isn’t Columbus. This can be doable however it could even be inconceivable. 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.
