John Tavares scored a hat-trick to lead the Toronto Maple Leafs past the Tampa Bay Lightning 7-2 in Game 2 of their Eastern Conference First Round series at Scotiabank Arena.
The win evened the series for Toronto with Game 3 set for Saturday night in Tampa Bay.
"Any time you get a hat-trick and especially one in the playoffs, it's pretty cool", said Tavares, who had a hat-trick for the first time ever in the Stanley Cup playoffs.
"Obviously I got rewarded from some great plays from my teammates, starting with [Morgan Rielly], who had a [heck] of a night. Any time you can contribute, find a way to get three, it's always positive to do that and just a sign of the group and how everyone is playing well together."
Rielly had four assists, Mitch Marner had a goal and two assists and Ilya Samsonov made 20 saves for the Maple Leafs.
"It was a great response, couldn't ask for a better start", said head coach Sheldon Keefe. "To earn the power play to begin with and to shoot in the net right away like that, I just thought our overall focus and execution I thought was really sharp tonight in the first period.
"We needed a response tonight in a big way, they took it to us pretty good the other night, and we needed to have a good day today and we did. So now we have a series. We'll get out on the road and have to play even better than we did tonight."
Ian Cole and Corey Perry had Tampa Bay's goals while Andre Vasilevskiy made 30 saves. The Lightning were without Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak, who were injured in Game 1.
"This has nothing to do with Victor Hedman being out of the game", said head coach Jon Cooper. "We've won games in this league without Victor Hedman.
"I could sit here and go through 100 years of cliches, which one do you want? In the end, did we play hard enough to win? Probably not. ... It's not because one guy was out, that would just be a porr, poor excuse."
Maple Leafs explode in Game 2, even series
Marner scored just 47 seconds into the game with Toronto on the power play. He took a pass from Rielly and his slap shot from above the right circle beat Vasilevskiy.
Tavares doubled the lead after also receiving a pass from Rielly, shooting from the left hash mark.
"Any time you can get on the board early, especailly wanting to get off to a good start considering the way things went for us the other night, it brought a lot of life for the group, and we fed off it", said Maple Leafs captain Tavares.
Two Tampa Bay power plays were killed off prior to Tavares scoring, one on Matthew Knies, who was called for hooking and the other on Jake McCabe, in the box for roughing.
With 4:52 left in the first period, William Nylander made it 3-0 as he shot from the left dot as Toronto had six attackers on the ice through a delayed double minor high-sticking penalty that was called on Steven Stamkos.
The Lightning got on the board less than nine minutes into the second period when Cole went forehand to backhand in the slot and shot past a sprawling Samsonov's glove.
Three goals in a 4:48 span put the game out of reach. Tavares scored off of a rebound to make it 4-1 following Nylander deflecting Rielly's shot in the slot.
Zach Aston-Reese jammed in a rebound of David Kampf's shot while in the crease and Marner made it 6-1 after his shot from above the right faceoff circle deflected off Brandon Hagel in the slot.
Cooper was considering pulling Vasilevskiy from the game, but the three-time Stanley Cup-winning goalie wouldn't come out.
"I think we and pretty much everyone else thinks he's the best goalie in the league", said Cole. "He wants to stay in that net, it's his net, he doesn't want to come out.
"You've got to love a guy like that who doesn't want to come out and is going to battle to the very end. We have to be way better in front of him."
Perry finished off a 2-on-1 with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare and three seconds after Tampa Bay killed off a 5-on-3, Tavares completed his hat-trick.
"We wanted to bounce back and have a good start and really respond after a Game 1 we weren't proud of", said Rielly. "So, for our group to come out early, have a good start, get on the board and ultimately win the game, [it's] a great feeling."