Tampa Bay Lightning @ Toronto Maple Leafs‌‌
07:00 PM at Scotiabank Arena‌‌
Watch on: ESPN, CBC, TVAS, SN, BSSUN

After a game one that was a bit of a disaster, the Toronto Maple Leafs are looking for their first win of the series tonight.

Toronto Maple Leafs Playoff recap: Game one loss
The Toronto Maple Leafs placed fourth in the NHL this season. Fourth in the Eastern Conference. Second in the Atlantic Division. 13 points ahead of the Tampa Bay Lightning, their first round opponents. And then…
PPP LeafsAdam Seldo

Injuries, suspensions, ten goals scored, and a dozen penalties all in one game.

I love the playoffs.

Them

The Lightnings depth will be on display tonight with multiple players out of the game or a game time decision. Erik Cernak, Victor Hedman, Mikey Eyssimont are in that group tonight. Ian Cole and Tanner Jeannot are in according to Coach Jon Cooper but aren't at 100% yet. Former Maple Leaf Zach Bogosian should suit up on the bottom defense pair.

Lines

Chris Krenn via Daily Faceoff

Steven Stamkos - Brayden Point - Nikita Kucherov‌‌
Brandon Hagel - Anthony Cirelli - Alex Killorn‌‌
Ross Colton - Nick Paul - Tanner Jeannot
Patrick Maroon - Pierre-Édouard Bellemare - Corey Perry

Victor Hedman* - Nicklaus Perbix‌‌
Mikhail Sergachev - Darren Raddysh‌‌
Ian Cole - Zach Bogosian

Andrei Vasilevskiy‌‌
Brian Elliott

The full team didn't skate this morning, so we don't have lines from there. Best guess is all we can do before warmup.

Us

Now that the Leafs have gotten the traditional first round suspension out of the way, they can tinker with the lines a bit, and it looks like they'll be spreading out of power by moving Ryan O'Rielly down to centre the third line, and Kerfoot-Tavares-Nylander is back as the second.

Matthew Knies was practicing like he's going to make his debut tonight, hopefully he can use that excitement and youthful energy to make that third line something Tampa has to worry about.

Lines

via David Alter, Leafs practice, 4/19

Calle Järnkrok - Auston Matthews - Mitch Marner‌‌
Alex Kerfoot - John Tavares -  William Nylander‌‌
Matthew Knies - Ryan O'Reilly - Noel Acciari‌‌
Zach Aston-Reese - David Kämpf - Sam Lafferty

Jake McCabe - TJ Brodie‌‌
Mark Giordano - Justin Holl‌‌
Morgan Rielly - Luke Schenn

Ilya Samsonov
Joseph Woll

Alter: Why the Leafs need to go back to Ilya Samsonov tonight

Michael Bunting out 3 games for his head hit on Erik Cernak
Michael Bunting of the Maple Leafs will have a hearing today with the Department of Player Safety for his hit to the head on Erik Cernak of the Lightning in game one of the playoffs.
PPP LeafsCathy Squires

The Game

The Lightning don't need to change much about their game plan coming into tonight. Everything seemed to go pretty well on Tuesday night. They scored, drew penalties, everything went their way.

The Maple Leafs, however, need to come out of the gate hard and fast. They were too slow to match Tampa's speed on Tuesday and it cost them an early goal. Too many shots were from the perimeter as well, and they'll need to push harder to get into the dirty areas and mash the puck in.

Rush the puck, crash the net, and most importantly stay in control.

Game on is over, but this is a best of seven. No one picked either of these teams to sweep the series and losses were going to happen. The Leafs got one out of the way early, and while that gives Tampa the series advantage, as I said in the roundtable:

They'll win. It'll be six games, they'll lose games one and three making everyone panic. All games will be close. It's going to be stressful.

So far, I've been very correct, aside from that close games thing.

Game two.

Tonight.

Go Leafs Go.

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