The Lightning have overcome injuries all season long, and Thursday in Toronto they had to deal with another one as they took the ice without two-way center Anthony Cirelli.
Already minus top scorers Nikita Kucherov and Brayden Point and without top right-shot defenseman Erik Cernak, Cirelli’s absence forced Lightning coach Jon Cooper to mix up his lines.
While the timely arrival of veteran center Riley Nash, claimed off waivers from Winnipeg earlier this week, helped fill the void, there’s no question Tampa Bay entered the game shorthanded.
The Lightning’s revamped first line, which elevated rookie Taylor Raddysh to play alongside Steven Stamkos and Ondrej Palat, played like it had been together for weeks, contributing two even-strength goals in the second period to propel the Lightning to a 5-3 win over the Maple Leafs.
With the win, Tampa Bay has won the first four games of its five-game road trip, which they concludes Saturday afternoon in Ottawa, and is 9-2-2 on the road this season.
With 38 points, the Lightning (17-5-4) moved into a three-way tie with the Panthers and Maple Leafs for first place in the Atlantic Division.
Stamkos, the Lightning’s leading scorer with 32 points, had a four-point game, including a power-play goal in the first-period that gave Tampa Bay a 2-1 edge.
After Stamkos fed Palat in front of the net just over four minutes into the second period for a 3-2 lead, Raddysh scored his third goal in four games at 9:11, finishing a 3-on-2 rush created when Stamkos and Palat won the puck on the forecheck. Raddysh also received a promotion to the Lightning’s top power-play unit with Cirelli out.
Palat added an empty-net goal late in the third to make the game 5-3.
The Lightning allowed two power-play goals in the first period, both coming after defensive zone faceoff losses. Leafs forward William Nylander flung a puck from the far wall through traffic past Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy with 6.4 seconds left in the opening period.
The one Lightning line that remained untouched was the veteran third line, and it provided Tampa Bay’s first goal when Pierre-Edouard Bellemare tipped in Corey Perry’s pass into the crease 9:57 into the game to tie the score at 1.
Toronto forward Ondrej Kase scored two goals, including cleaning up a loose puck 9:36 into the third period, ending Vasilevskiy’s stretch of 20 straight saves following Nylander’s goal in the waning seconds of the first period.
