Maple Leafs one win from advancing after thrilling Game 5 victory against Lightning

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The Maple Leafs are on the cusp of adding a significant chapter to their storybook year.

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After setting franchise records for wins and points during the regular season, the Leafs are one win away from advancing to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time since 2004.

That is the reality in the best-of-seven series against the Tampa Bay Lightning after the Leafs recovered with a terrific effort to take Game 5 by a 4-3 score on Tuesday night.

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The Leafs, with a 3-2 lead in the series, can move on with a win in Game 6 on Thursday in Tampa. If not, Game 7 goes on Saturday night in Toronto.

The duo that has propelled the Leafs from October onward — Auston Matthews and Mitch Marner — naturally hooked up for the winner at 13:54 of the third.

A Marner rebound off a 2-on-1 was buried by Matthews, sending the Scotiabank Arena crowd into a frenzy. 

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The two-time Cup champion Lightning couldn’t get another puck past Jack Campbell, who had a strong performance in the Leafs net. A sprawling save on Nikita Kucherov when the game was tied 3-3 was his biggest of the night.

Down 2-1 to start the third period, the Leafs didn’t let up from where they finished the second.

Excellent stick work by captain John Tavares during four-on-four allowed Morgan Rielly to find open space and hammer a Tavares pass past Andrei Vasilevskiy at 3:01.

As the tying Rielly goal was being announced, the crowd erupted again when William Nylander took a pass from Ilya Mikheyev and ripped a shot past Vasilevskiy at 4:14.

That goal, remarkably, represented the first lead change in the series. 

The Toronto lead didn’t last much longer than four minutes. At 8:17, Ryan McDonagh blasted a shot past Campbell after the Leafs got disorganized in their end.

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Not only were the Leafs numerous strides sharper in the second period than they were in the first, Tavares put his name in the goal column on the scoresheet after recording just two assists through four games.

“As much as you want everybody to be rolling, you want everybody to have over a point a game, that’s not really the reality of how the league works (in the playoffs),” Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said during his morning availability. “Matthews and Marner have done very well and they produce at a good clip. John has worked extremely hard. He has done good things. As this series goes on, he’s going to have lots of opportunity to make a difference. John’s time is going to come.”

That time came at 3:35 of the second when a shot by William Nylander deflected off Tavares and past Vasilevskiy. The goal came on a power play, and ignited the Leafs to carry the pace for the remainder of the period. 

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The Leafs buzzed around Vasilevskiy, who managed to make 13 saves in the period. Toronto played with the kind of determination they should have had from the game’s opening faceoff, and the kind they will need from the initial puck drop in Game 6.

After the first four games of the series were bogged down by a run of penalties on both sides, we finally got a peek at the intensity that five-on-five hockey can bring in the playoffs.

Campbell was stellar in the second, making nine saves. More than once, Tampa forward Nick Paul skated away in frustration following a tough Campbell stop on him. 

The first period couldn’t have gone much worse for the Leafs, though we suppose the Lightning could have scored more than twice on its 14 shots on goal. 

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And to think the Leafs were adamant they were going to be better than they were in the Game 4 debacle, at least to start. 

It wasn’t as though the Leafs didn’t have a chance to set the tone. 

Marner couldn’t convert on a breakaway, though Marner was hampered by a hard-charging Anthony Cirelli as he closed in on Vasilevskiy.

And then the Leafs, as they have been known to do, decided passes were enough on an early power play when Tampa was called for too many men. The Leafs didn’t get a shot on goal with a man advantage. Not long after the power play ended, Steven Stamkos gave the visitors up 1-0 when he beat Campbell at 5:19 on a shot to the blocker side that the goalie should have stopped. 

A hooking call on TJ Brodie put the Leafs a man down, and it was 2-0 at 6:11 when Victor Hedman’s well-placed shot from the point got past a screened Campbell. 

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