Wow where do I start? Well speaking of starting, the Leafs couldn’t seem to start on time. The Leafs fall to the Lightning 7-3 on Tuesday night. Game 1 was a complete disaster for Toronto.
From a series that had such mixed opinions and that was very unpredictable the Leafs didn’t hold up their end of the bargain for game 1, especially in the first period. The Lightning would come out on fire and Pierre-Edouard Bellemare would open the scoring in the first 2 minutes of the game. Samsonov looked a bit shakey in the first period giving out 2 rebounds that lead to 2 goals and the Lightning going up 2-0. The Lightning would finish off their amazing first period with a goal by Nikita Kucherov.
At the start of the second period the Leaf seemed to have woken up and were competing like a playoff team. They would start the second period with a goal from Ryan O’Reilly. The Leafs would continue their momentum and kill a Lightning penalty then shortly after a goal from William Nylander to make it a 3-2 game. That was the closest the game would get. As the Lightning would retake control of the game and would score 3 more goals to make it 6-2. Joseph Woll would start the third period but that wouldn’t stop the Lightning. This game got out of hand quickly for the Leafs. They were slow to start the game which made them fall behind quickly and never got to compete in a close game. Michael Bunting would see a 5-minute game misconduct for his hit on Erik Cernak.
Samsonov was obviously shaky and nervous tonight and you could see it. Although he had some great saves he was often over sliding and was out of position. I think Samsonov will have a bounce-back game for game 2. But now there will be questions about whether Murray should start a game when he’s healthy. I do not think Leaf fans should panic just yet because last season the Lightning lost 5-0 in game 1. I still believe the Leafs will come out on top, my original thoughts can be found here. It didn’t matter how badly they lost, it matters how they responded in the next game.
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