Morgan Reilly scored at 19:15 of overtime to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of their first-round NHL playoff series on Saturday night.
Ilya Samsonov stopped 36 shots for Toronto. He had eight saves in the extra period, including one on Lightning star Nikita Kucherov from point-blank range, to help give the Maple Leafs a 2–1 series lead. Game 4 is Monday night at Amalie Arena.
Auston Matthews and Noel Acciari also scored for Toronto, which forced overtime when Ryan O’Reilly missed a shot past goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy in regulation.
Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Heigl scored for Tampa Bay, which took a 3–2 lead in the second period on rookie Darren Radish’s first career playoff goal.
Play was interrupted for several minutes early in the third period while the officials sorted through a wild sequence that began with Reilly pushing Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point into the boards as the two grappled for a loose puck. were battling
The hit touched off several skirmishes, one of them involving Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos and Matthews.
Stamkos and Matthews were sent to the penalty box for fighting, as were Kucherov and O’Reilly.
Reilly was initially assessed a five-minute penalty for boarding, but after a review, officials ruled that there was no penalty for pushing Point, who returned to the locker room in the closing minutes of regulation. I was bent over in pain.
Matthews and Acciari scored goals in the first period for Toronto. The Maple Leafs forced overtime when O’Reilly scored in front after Vasilevskiy blocked William Nylander’s shot from the left side of the net.
Tampa Bay erased a one-goal deficit in the opening period, with Hegel scoring his first goal of the series to make it 2–2. Radish, skating in from the back of the net, fired a nifty shot over Samsonov to make it 3-2 until O’Reilly stopped the Lightning with a minute left in the third.
no goal
The Lightning looked to go up 4–2 two minutes later after Radish scored. But what would have been a power-play goal for the point was overturned after officials used replays to determine that Samsonov covered the puck before poking it under the goaltender’s pads and into the net.
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headman returns
Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman played after missing the final two periods of Game 1 and all of Game 2 due to an undisclosed injury. In Game 1, defenseman Eric Cernak was sidelined after taking a hit to the head from Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting. Bunting served a three-game suspension for illegal checking and interference on the head.
