The Toronto Maple Leafs built a four-goal lead and held off a late push by the Tampa Bay Lightning to earn a 5-3 victory at Amalie Arena on Saturday. Joseph Woll stopped 38 of 41 shots to protect the lead as Tampa Bay mounted a third-period comeback attempt.
Matthew Knies opened the scoring for Toronto at 7:13 of the first period, deflecting in a tip-in off assists from 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, assisted by Mitch Marner and Pontus Holmberg. Nick Robertson added another wrist shot just 33 seconds later, and John Tavares tucked in a backhand at 18:59 to push Toronto ahead 4-0.
Tampa Bay responded with three straight goals in the second half of the third period. Michael Eyssimont scored on a slap shot at 11:21, and Jake Guentzel followed with a wrist shot at 15:19. Cam Atkinson cut the deficit to 4-3 on a power-play tip-in with 2:22 remaining. William Nylander secured the win for Toronto by scoring into an empty net at 18:44.
Woll earned the win for the Maple Leafs with 38 saves, while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 24 of 28 shots in the loss for Tampa Bay. The Lightning converted 1 of 3 opportunities on the power play, and Toronto finished 0 for 1 with the man advantage.
The victory improved Toronto to 14-7-2 on the season and gave the Maple Leafs two wins in two regular-season meetings against the Lightning. Tampa Bay dropped to 12-9-2 following the loss.
