LEAFS STORM BACK FOR OVERTIME WIN

Samsonov’s heroics set stage for dramatic finish as Toronto grabs 2-1 series lead

TAMPA, FLA. Sometimes in hockey, it ain’t about what you deserve. All night the Maple Leafs were the inferior team, the sloppier team, and deserved to be trailing by a goal into the final minute. It could and should have been more, except goalies play hockey, too. And Leafs goaltender Ilya Samsonov went from shaky looking to unconscious, and kept the Leafs in the game.

Then the Leafs pulled the goalie and William Nylander did one of the few productive things he did all night by shooting the puck into the pads of Andrei Vasilevskiy, and Ryan O’Reilly jammed home the rebound with 60 seconds left. This shouldn’t have gone to overtime, not really. But hockey’s funny sometimes.

And in overtime Samsonov was forced to make save after save, the man in the shooting gallery, until with 44.7 seconds left Morgan Rielly sent a seeing-eye wrist shot from the far boards and it went over Vasilevskiy’s shoulder — 4-3 final. Samsonov made 36 saves, and the Leafs lead the series two games to one.

In Tampa’s league-defining run since 2020, Vasilevskiy was 21-2 in playoff games after a loss, with a 1.88 goals-against average and .931 save percentage. It was telling that Samsonov’s big grinning takeaway from Game 2 was that he was a little less nervous than he was in Game 1, when he spit out rebounds like a Pez dispenser. Meanwhile, at the other end, Vasilevskiy refused to leave the net for the third period in Game 2, and is a legend in the making. He would man the crease at the gates of hell if he had to.

Beyond the obvious, Samsonov was facing a Russian goaltending hero, and Samsonov’s 17 road games were quite uneven this year.

But while Tampa controlled the game, it was Samsonov who kept it close. It was still 3-2 to start the third, and five minutes into the period Rielly and Brayden Point were chasing a puck and Rielly flexed a little, and Point seemed to stumble and flew headfirst into the boards. He then held his stomach — maybe he wanted to ward off a concussion check — and would return to the game.

But next thing you know Auston Matthews and Steven Stamkos were fighting — Matthews had never received a fighting major — and Ryan O’Reilly and Nikita Kucherov were, too. This isn’t what we talk about when we talk about a battle of the stars with these teams. That also meant Matthews and O’Reilly were trapped in the box as the game ran on without a whistle, and they didn’t get out until there were six minutes left as Toronto failed to push. And it took until the final minute, with the net empty, for the Leafs to knot it up.

It had been a Lightning night. Yes, Victor Hedman was back for the Lightning and made a Hedman-sized impact despite the injury that kept him out of Game 2. But Toronto struggled to clear the own zone,

to control the puck, to get to dangerous areas. They were too conservative, too unpoised. The Matthews line was very good; nothing else worked.

And still it was only 3-2 Tampa on a goal by little-used defenceman Darren Raddysh, a 27-year-old who had played 19 NHL games before this series. That isn’t supposed to be who beats you.

Of course, part of this had been the Leafs beating themselves. Unlike Games 1 and 2, both teams showed up at the same time, and the Leafs scored on their second shot — Noel Acciari, on a breakout rush with O’Reilly and Matthew Knies, who slipped a nifty pass to Acciari to give him the chance — and the Lightning scored on their first, slicing apart Toronto’s neutral zone.

Matthews, meanwhile, produced Toronto’s second goal on sheer force of will and talent: chasing his own rebound, devouring Raddysh, deflecting home a Marner point shot. At that point in the first period, the Leafs led 2-1 and were OK.

Then came mistakes. John Tavares picked up a hooking penalty 200 feet from his own net; it was a little soft, but still. Toronto killed the penalty but couldn’t clear the zone — that was a theme, not clearing the zone — and Tampa’s Brandon Hagel absolutely ghosted O’Reilly in the slot, sliding past him in a phone booth, and ended the play with a shot that bounced off T.J. Brodie and in off Samsonov with 32 seconds left in the first period. Corey Perry, by the way, collected his fifth point of the series. It was 2-2 after one.

The Leafs sagged in the second and were dodging their own bullets. Sam Lafferty threw a cross-check in a net-front scrum and picked up a penalty. A Tampa goal was called back after a Brodie turnover on the penalty kill: the puck rolled into the folds of Samsonov’s pads and never seemed to come to a stop, but the whistle was blown before it was poked in.

But a few minutes later Jake McCabe sent a puck off a Lightning skate that led to an icing, and Raddysh skated around everyone and scored. Gone was the lopsided whiplash of the first two games, in which the two teams produced eerily mirrored images in a paid of blowouts — two 3-0 leads after a period, two seven-goal totals, just slightly different shades of blue with white. But this was a one-sided game in a different way.

That’s where Samsonov shone, and stole the game.

Now comes Game 4, and a chance for the Leafs to take control of a series they have not been in control of. This series was always expected to go long, and it almost feels like we’re just killing time until a Game 6 or 7, until someone has to win or go home. But that’s no guarantee, either, and the Leafs will need to be much better to make that happen. Game 4 is Monday.