Leafs, in dominant form, take latest chapter in burgeoning Lightning rivalry

Familiarity often breeds contempt, and though the Maple Leafs and Lightning are among the NHL’s most skilled teams, we’re anticipating a few more chippy affairs in the future after a 4-1 Toronto win on Tuesday night.

Michael Bunting opened the scoring and notched his 100th career point in the process, Auston Matthews added an insurance goal on the power play early in the second frame, while Pierre Engvall and William Nylander notched empty-net tallies in the third. Vladislav Namestnikov got Tampa Bay on the board in the final frame, but it was too little, too late.

Matt Murray made 18 saves, while Andrei Vasilevskiy made 36 stops.

Here are three takeaways from Tuesday’s Maple Leafs-Lightning clash.

Maple Leafs used last change to avoid Anthony Cirelli, and it worked perfectly

Anthony Cirelli is as disruptive as two-way forwards get — excluding Patrice Bergeron, the current gold standard — and he was singled out by Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe on Tuesday morning as a primary reason behind the Lightning’s five-game winning streak.

A seven-game sample isn’t large enough, but Cirelli was off to the best start of his career. He's a perpetual Selke Trophy candidate who unlocks Tampa Bay’s unmatched flexibility through its forward corps. At morning skate I asked Jon Cooper about how Cirelli would factor in against Toronto’s high-octane offense, given that he was a point of emphasis for Keefe.

“Well, he slots everybody properly now. He slots who he can match up against,” Cooper said Tuesday morning. “To have a guy like Tony to be able to play anywhere in the lineup, but be able to kind of be a thorn in the side of some of the key players on another team, that takes a little weight off the shoulders of Pointer, Paul, Stammer and those guys. He’s the engine that stirs the drink, pulls the team into the fight and he just plays a lot of those minutes that can take away from some of your offensive core that you want to open up for them.

“I think Sheldon’s probably right, there’s no coincidence we’ve gone on a run since Tony’s come back.”

Toronto exercised its right to last change to perfection in order to avoid Cirelli. Cirelli was flanked by Ross Colton and Pat Maroon, and their line was deployed against Toronto’s bottom six initially, before primarily getting the Auston Matthews line. Perhaps Cirelli was stretched too thin, as he struggled to make any impact whatsoever when Mitch Marner was on the ice, posting the worst box score of his early campaign.

Cirelli finished with a team-worst 28 percent Corsi share at 5-on-5, with a miserable 13.10 share of the expected goals at 5-on-5 via Natural Stat Trick. He was barely noticeable on the ice against stellar competition. Keefe said he wasn’t particularly concerned about line matching against Cirelli, while noting that Pontus Holmberg and Zach Aston-Reese also played well against the defensive-minded stalwart.

“It’s just the way some of the matchups played out. I just felt like we had to go head-to-head with the top two groups. And they were seemingly comfortable with that as well,” Keefe said post-game.

“It’s always one of those challenging things when you’re playing against really strong defensive centers, sometimes you’re trying to avoid that matchup and you end up with another matchup somewhere else that you don’t love. For the most part, we handled that. That was important to me, just to get our guys out, that included the Holmberg line.”

Cirelli is a safe bet to win a Selke Trophy one day. He’s already locked up the Maple Leafs’ best players in a crucial playoff series that may retroactively shape the direction of Toronto’s franchise. But for one night, with all eyes on him, Cirelli faded into the background when placed against elite competition. Maybe Cirelli is a microcosm of the Lightning at-large, after all.

Bunting reaches century mark in stellar all-around performance

Michael Bunting has been one of the best finds of the Kyle Dubas era, featuring as a first-line talent for the Maple Leafs after joining the team as a relatively unknown entity last season.

Bunting’s meteoric arc with the Maple Leafs was perhaps fully realized when he scored the game’s opening goal, his 100th career point, even if he didn’t realize he had reached the milestone itself.

Bunting’s tenacity and puck retrieval were fully evident against the Lightning, recording six shots, a team-best 0.56 individual expected goals at 5-on-5 via Natural Stat Trick and another drawn penalty, adding to his league lead. He’s unwilling to back down from a challenge, even if it’s from an unlikely source.

Entering the first intermission, Bunting was pushed violently several times by referee Dan Kelly, who assessed offsetting minors to him and Tampa Bay’s Pierre-Edouard Bellemare. It was an unbelievable spectacle to witness, but Bunting would downplay the incident after the game.

“Yeah, I played against him in the minors. I probably have history with everybody,” Bunting joked post-game about his fiery interaction with Kelly.

“He’s a competitor out there. He’s going to compete, he’s going to get under the other team’s skin, he’s going to be around the net. He was a beast tonight,” Auston Matthews said of Bunting post-game.

“Obviously, a big goal. A lot of small plays that don’t get noticed all the time that he was making and just the compete factor. That’s what you expect from guys leading the way in that regard, and he did.”

Matt Murray confirmed that Bunting was the recipient of the team belt, awarded to a new Maple Leafs player after every win. It was a well-deserved honour and an excellent choice on a night where several Maple Leafs elevated their games.

“It’s nice to get to that milestone, and hopefully I have definitely more in me,” Bunting said.

Rasmus Sandin looked terrific before leaving with neck injury

The game appeared to be slowing down for Rasmus Sandin. He’s stepped his game up considerably during a rash of injuries to Toronto’s blue line, where Morgan Rielly and Jake Muzzin aren’t expected to return to the lineup anytime soon. Sandin made some key interceptions, some simple but necessary breakout passes, exercised patience against Steven Stamkos on the low wall in his own end, and then set up Auston Matthews for the eventual game-winner. It was a terrific performance. And then it all went to hell.

No one saw exactly what happened, but Sandin left for the dressing room early in the second period and did not return. During the second intermission, the Maple Leafs ruled him out of the contest with a neck injury.

Keefe revealed post-game that Sandin was pulled for precautionary reasons and that the team would have a more substantial update tomorrow. We’re not going to parse through it or imagine Sandin’s injury to be any worse than it is, but a neck injury always sounds jarring, and though the Maple Leafs have weathered a barrage of ailments to its blue line, you have to fear for the 22-year-old.

What does it mean for the Maple Leafs going forward? The recently acquired Conor Timmins will almost certainly get more minutes — Keefe raved that he was fun to watch tonight — while Justin Holl, Mark Giordano (who has been outstanding the past month and a half) and TJ Brodie are going to have be Herculean.

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