The Toronto Maple Leafs built an early four-goal cushion and withstood a third-period push by the Tampa Bay Lightning to take a 5-3 victory at Amalie Arena on Saturday. Matthew Knies opened the scoring and William Nylander sealed the outcome with an empty-net goal after Tampa Bay cut the margin to one late in regulation.
Toronto grabbed the lead at 7:13 of the first period when Knies redirected a shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy, with assists credited to Chris Tanev and Auston Matthews. The Maple Leafs broke the game open during the second period with three unanswered goals. Tanev scored his first goal of the season with a wrist shot at 8:06, and Nick Robertson doubled the advantage just 33 seconds later on another wrist shot at 8:39. John Tavares completed the four-goal outburst with a backhand goal at 18:59 off passes from Mitch Marner and Morgan Rielly.
The Lightning mounted a rally midway through the third period. Michael Eyssimont put Tampa Bay on the board with a slap shot at 11:21, and Jake Guentzel followed with a wrist shot at 15:19 to trim the deficit to two. Cam Atkinson then tipped in a puck on the power play at 17:38 to pull Tampa Bay within one goal. Nylander ended the comeback attempt with an empty-net goal at 18:44, assisted by Matthews and Knies.
Joseph Woll earned the victory in net for Toronto by making 38 saves on 41 shots faced. Vasilevskiy stopped 24 of 28 shots in the loss for the Lightning. Tampa Bay converted on one of its three power-play chances, while the Maple Leafs went 0 for 1 with the man advantage.
The result moved Toronto to a 14-7-2 regular-season record and improved their mark against the Lightning to 2-0 this season. Tampa Bay fell to 12-9-2 following the loss.
