The Backcheck: Bolts forced to settle for a split in Toronto

Polar opposites.
That would probably be the best way to describe Game One and Game Two of the Tampa Bay Lightning's First Round series against the Toronto Maple Leafs.
After opening the postseason with a 7-3 victory over the Leafs Tuesday night at Scotiabank arena, the Bolts dropped Thursday's contest 7-2 and now find themselves in a series evened at one.

In the same fashion that Toronto had a nightmare start in Game 1, Tampa Bay had a nightmare start of their own in Game 2.
Playing on the road, teams look to get through those first five to 10 minutes in hopes of neutralizing the crowd and settling things down, but the Bolts couldn't do that Thursday night after Ian Cole was whistled for tripping 40 seconds into the game and Mitch Marner opened the scoring just seven seconds into the man advantage.

Inserted into the lineup for Game 2 in absence of Erik Cernak, Zach Bogosian looked to give his team a spark when he dropped the gloves with Mark Giordano at the 3:02 mark of the first.
Shortly later, Matthew Knies was whistled for hooking and sent the Lightning to the power play 1:21 after the scrap between Bogosian and Giordano.
In a great opportunity to get the game tied up, the Bolts got a couple looks on their first power play of the night, but couldn't capitalize as Toronto continued to take hold of the momentum in the game and proceeded to jump out to a 2-0 lead with 7:15 left in the opening period.
After Anthony Cirelli got kicked out of the faceoff circle in the defensive zone, John Tavares won the draw for Toronto, found a soft spot near the hashmarks and fired a quick shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy to double the Leafs lead.
Only 2:23 later, Toronto had a 6-on-5 advantage with a delayed penalty set to be called on Tampa Bay before William Nylander got the puck at the left circle and wired a shot into the top right corner to send the Leafs to the first intermission with a 3-0 lead, the exact opposite situation they were in following the first period of Game One.
Over the first five minutes of the second period, Vasilevskiy stood tall in the crease and made some big saves to keep the score at 3-0. The Lightning were able to build off that and got back within two when Steven Stamkos skated into the Toronto end and sent a pass across the offensive zone to Ian Cole, who made a nifty move to the backhand and beat Ilya Samsonov to make it 3-1 with 11:02 left in the second period.
From there, the Bolts started to find their game and strung together multiple strong shifts as the momentum began to swing in their favor. But at the 13:14 mark of the middle frame, Tavares went unchecked in front of the net and buried a rebound off a shot from Morgan Rielly to make it 4-1 in what felt like the goal that really took the wind out of Tampa Bay's sails.
During some of the Lightning's losing efforts in regular season contests, there were times when the team would let things snowball and surrender multiple goals against in a short span of time. That was the case late in the second period on Thursday with Zach Aston-Reese scoring 2:38 after the Tavares goal and Marner making it a 6-1 game 2:10 later.
Heading to the locker room in a five-goal hole after 40 minutes, Bolts head coach Jon Cooper did say he considered giving Vasilevskiy the third period off, but the star goaltender wasn't having it.
"I did," said Cooper when asked if he considered pulling Vasilevskiy during the second intermission. "And that was quickly shut down by the goalie. And that's why he's the best in the world. He's not coming out.
"Once again, tip your hat to that kid."

Without Vasilevskiy between the pipes, the score could've been worse. The Big Cat may have given up seven goals, but he made some very impressive saves along the way in an attempt to keep his team in the game.
In Game One, the Bolts were the better team in their defensive zone and dominated the game in the dirty areas in front of the Toronto net.
In Game Two, the Leafs were the better team in their defensive zone and dominated the game in the dirty areas in front of the Tampa Bay net.
Corey Perry continued to play well for the Bolts in this series, scoring his second goal in as many games to make it 6-2 at the 12:38 mark of the third period before Tavares scored the final goal of the night and completed his hat trick with 4:54 remaining.
On a night that the Lightning were without Erik Cernak and Victor Hedman on the back end due to injury, along with Mikey Eyssimont up front, nobody in the locker room was prepared to use that as an excuse for the poor performance.
"Obviously tough to see them both not be able to play," Stamkos said. "Very good players. Very important to us. But we still felt confident that if we put our game plan together that we could make a competitive effort.
"But we didn't stick to the game plan and Toronto played really well tonight.
"It's one-one. We wanted to take a game here. We did. And we've been through a lot.
"It's not a roller coaster of a series. It's manage the emotions, come back home, and now it's our turn to have a response game."
The Lightning knew they'd get a push from Toronto in Game Two and were hopeful they'd be ready for that. But things went downhill in a hurry and Tampa Bay will now look to bounce back Saturday night at AMALIE Arena.

"They're a great hockey team," Cole said. "They have been all year. They have been for quite a few years.
"They put together a great game. Obviously, we weren't up to the challenge tonight.
"We got a split, which is good. We need to go back and get ready for home games."
During his postgame media availability, Cooper was asked if he's worried about the level of urgency from his team. A coach that's taken his team to the Stanley Cup Final in three straight seasons and regularly speaks about all the "gamers" in the Tampa Bay locker room, Cooper shut that down right away.
"It's a seven-game series," said Cooper. "It's not a one game, one-and-done.
"We'll be alright."
The Lightning have been here before. At the end of the day, it doesn't matter what the final score is. A loss is a loss.
The goal was to win at least one of the two games on the road. Tampa Bay did that.
Now, it's on them to turn the page and punch back. They'll get their chance Saturday.