Morgan Reilly scored at 19:15 of overtime to give the Toronto Maple Leafs a 4-3 victory over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Saturday night in Game 3 of the first-round NHL playoff series.
Ilya Samsonov stopped 36 shots for Toronto. He had eight saves in the extra period, one on Lightning star Nikita Kucherov from point-blank range, to help give the Maple Leafs a 2-1 series lead. Game 4 is Monday night at Amalie Arena.
Auston Matthews and Noel Acciari also scored for Toronto, which forced overtime when Ryan O’Reilly slipped a shot past goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy with a minute left in regulation.
Anthony Cirelli and Brandon Hagel scored for Tampa Bay, which took a 3-2 lead on rookie Darren Raddysh’s first career playoff goal in the second period.
Play was interrupted for several minutes early in the third period while officials sorted through a wild sequence that began with Reilly pushing Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point into the boards as the two battled for a loose puck.
The hit touched off several skirmishes, one of them involving Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos and Matthews.
Stamkos and Matthews were sent to the penalty box for fighting, as were Kucherov and O’Reilly.
Reilly was initially assessed a five-minute penalty for boarding, but following a review, the officials ruled there was no penalty for the shove on Point, who skated to the locker room bent over in pain before returning to the closing minutes of regulation.
Matthews and Acciari scored in the first period for Toronto. The Maple Leafs forced overtime when O’Reilly scored from in front after Vasilevskiy blocked William Nylander’s shot from left of the net.
Tampa Bay wiped out a pair of one-goal deficits in the opening period, with Hagel’s first goal of the series making it 2-2. Raddysh skated from behind the net to lift a nifty shot over Samsonov for the 3-2 lead the Lightning held until O’Reilly tied it with exactly one minute left in the third.
NO GOAL
Two minutes after Raddysh scored, the Lightning appeared to go up 4-2. But what would have been a power-play goal for Point was waved off after officials used replay to determine that Samsonov had covered up the puck before Point poked it out from under the goaltender’s pad and into the net.
HEDMAN RETURNS
Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman played after missing the final two periods of Game 1 and all of Game 2 due to an undisclosed injury. Defenseman Erik Cernak remained sidelined after taking a hit to the head from Maple Leafs forward Michael Bunting in Game 1. Bunting drew a three-game suspension for an illegal check to the head and interference.
