Knies hat trick helps Maple Leafs defeat Lightning in OT, widen Atlantic lead
Matthew Knies completed a hat trick at 2:56 of overtime to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 4-3 victory against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena on Wednesday.
Knies won it when he stuffed the puck into an open net off a backdoor pass from Auston Matthews.
“I was just hopping on the ice and I had trouble believing what I was seeing in front of me,” Matthews said. “Morgan [Rielly] made a really nice play to me and I was able to just catch it. … I just tried to find [Knies] as quickly as possible.”
Toronto extended its lead on Tampa Bay in the Atlantic Division to three points. The second-place Lightning lead the third-place Florida Panthers by three. All three teams have clinched a berth in the Stanley Cup Playoffs and have four games remaining.
Mitch Marner had a goal and two assists, and Matthews had three assists for the Maple Leafs (48-26-4), who lost 3-1 at the Panthers on Tuesday. Anthony Stolarz made 25 saves.
“It’s huge for us. Especially after last night, we really weren’t at our best,” Stolarz said. “I think tonight you could see the intensity, you can see the dedication in the defensive zone as well in the offensive zone. The guys were blocking a ton of pucks. Kudos to those guys in front of me. They made my job a lot easier.”
Oliver Bjorkstrand and Victor Hedman each had a goal and an assist, and Brandon Hagel had two assists for the Lightning (45-26-7), who have lost three of their past four (1-1-2). Andrei Vasilevskiy made 27 saves.
“I liked our game, we had a good mentality, but a tough start,” said Hedman, the Tampa Bay captain. “We want to get home ice and best-case scenario finish first. For us we did what we set out to do, make the playoffs, now we have our destiny in our hands to get home ice.”
Marner gave Toronto a 1-0 lead at 1:13 of the first period. Matthews intercepted a pass from Hagel and fed Marner, who scored with a shot from the right hash marks that beat Vasilevskiy on the blocker side.
“It’s two hard back-to-back games, two very top-end teams in this league,” Marner said. “I was very happy with our effort tonight. We just stuck with our game plan and had confidence in it.”
Knies extended the lead to 2-0 at 3:33, scoring from below the left face-off circle on the rebound of a Matthews shot.
“I think he’s just a confident person in general,” Matthews, the Maple Leafs captain, said of Knies. “I think he has a pretty good idea of who he is and what makes him successful, and I think he really leans into that. A guy like him is going to continue to get better and better. His ceiling is extremely high. He’s been taking some really big steps this season and it’s great to see.”
Nick Perbix cut it to 2-1 at 18:58 when he sent a wrist shot from the top of the right circle to the stick side.
Bjorkstrand tied it 2-2 with a power-play goal 50 seconds into the third period. He scored with a one-timer from the right hash marks off a pass from Nikita Kucherov.
“[Perbix’s] goal got us some momentum,” Bjorkstrand said. “We wanted to get back to playing good hockey and playing quick. A lot of it was puck management. We had to regroup and find a spark.”
Knies then put Toronto ahead 3-2 on the man-advantage at 2:03 when he poked the puck in from close range after his initial tip attempt was stopped.
“We’re fighting for every inch out there,” Matthews said. “There’s not a lot of space, they’re a really good team over there and they’ve been playing great hockey lately. I just thought we did a good job when the momentum got away from us getting it back.”
Hedman’s power-play goal tied it 3-3 at 11:05. He scored with a wrist shot from the top of the slot that got past Stolarz’s glove with Hagel providing a screen.
“Embarrassing first 3 1/2 minutes,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “In saying that for 57 minutes we leaned on them and they’re a first-place team, one of the best teams in the League. As that game kept going we did a lot of good things. When you dig yourself a 2-0 hole and we were able to come back and salvage a point … give the guys credit, they battled but it was a really tough start.”
Each goalie stopped a breakaway attempt in overtime. Stolarz made a save on Brayden Point at 32 seconds, and Vasilevskiy denied Oliver Ekman-Larsson at 1:08.
