The Maple Leafs head back to Toronto with a tied series and a lot of questions after a truly awful effort against the Tampa Bay Lightning last night left the series tied up once again.

Here’s a link to our live recap of last night’s game.


Maple Leafs make fools of themselves vs Lightning


The series is now a best-of-three, with a minimum of two more games. They are scheduled as follows:

Tuesday @ 7:30 p.m. in Toronto
Thursday @ Time TBA in Tampa
Saturday @ Time TBA but almost certainly 7:00 p.m. in Toronto

Here’s Keefe post-game with the media, including a confrontation with Steve Simmons who asked him why he we would “start his worst defenceman” in such a “loud building”. It’s a fun exchange for all.

They have to find a way to blow off last night’s debacle and move on. That’s not going to be easy, but the pathways to victory are getting cutoff quickly now. A loss tomorrow would be a catastrophic blow, with the dreaded game #7 then being the only path to winning. Needless to say, they have to sort out everything which went wrong last night, and they have to do it immediately.

We’ll monitor for news about possible lineup changes, which are expected to be revealed at a practice today which is usually around noon.

Other Series News

Every series was reset last night with all the trailing teams winning to tie it back up at 2 games each.

The Bruins beat the Hurricanes 5-2; the Blues beat the Wild 5-2; and the Kings beat the Oilers 4-0. Ex-Leaf Trevor Moore scored in the game, while our old friend Carl Grundstrom scored a controversial goal to close out the game.

Tonight’s Schedule

Here are the other games on tonight, if you are looking for some hockey to watch (all times are ET):

7:00 p.m. Florida Panthers @ Washington Capitals
the Capitals are leading this series 2-1.

7:00 p.m. New York Rangers @ Pittsburgh Penguins
the Penguins are leading this series 2-1.

9:30 p.m. Colorado Avalanche @ Nashville Predators
the Avalanche are leading this series 3-0, and can close out the sweep tonight with a win.

9:30 p.m. Calgary Flames @ Dallas Stars
the Stars are leading this series 2-1, which is quite a surprise as Calgary was expected to be able to steamroll over them.

Where is your confidence level at right now?

The Leafs will win the series in six games.73
The Leafs will win the series in seven games.119
You don’t want to know what I think is going to happen.277