Lightning not fooled by victory over Maple Leafs

TAMPA -- Jon Cooper just finished his postgame press conference when he ran into counterpart Mike Babcock, who was on his way to the Toronto Maple Leafs team bus.

They shook hands.
"Good game coach. You deserved a better fate," said Cooper, the coach of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
Babcock told the media that very thing minutes earlier. He said there was no shame in the way his team played in its
4-1 loss
to the Lightning on Thursday, a game in which the Maple Leafs outshot Tampa Bay 49-21.
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In that regard, the two coaches were on the same page.
They also agreed on one other important aspect.
A win is a win. There are no extra points in the standings for artistic merit.
As such, Cooper and the Lightning extended their lead to eight points in the NHL standings. Tampa Bay (25-7-1) is first with 51 points; the Maple Leafs (21-10-1) remain in second with 43, the same as Nashville Predators (21-10-1).
"That was a very very good team we played, they gave us everything they had," Cooper said. "Should we be fortunate enough to get to the playoffs, we are going to have to go through quality teams like that.
"We are going to have to be much better. We learned a lot."
What the Lightning learned, for starters, is that goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy is back to being the difference maker he was prior to fracturing his foot in practice over a month ago. Vasilevskiy, who missed the previous 14 games, returned Thursday and made a career-high 48 saves against the Maple Leafs.
"They're a really good team," Vasilevskiy said. "They were a hard test for us. They played very well."

So did Vasilevskiy, whose assembly line of highlight-reel saves, included a sprawling one on a bouncing puck, with the last inch of his pad with 18:05 left in the third period, had some Maple Leafs wondering out loud if the goalie's ligaments were made out of rubber.
"That was the best game a goalie has played against us this year," Toronto forward John Tavares said after registering six shots and no goals.
Vasilevskiy was the story of the game through the first 39 minutes, allowing the Lightning to hold on to a 2-1 lead. Then a collapse by the visitors in the final 40 seconds of the second period resulted in goals by Alex Killorn and Tyler Johnson, which gave Tampa a three-goal cushion heading into the third.
"They had 59 minutes of good hockey, we had one," Cooper said.
Babcock said that was all the Lightning needed.
"We made the mistake - we got beat to our net on their third goal, we turned it over on their fourth. That got us out of the game, which is disappointing because we thought we did lots of good things," Babcock said.

That's the lesson the Maple Leafs learned: Lapses against top teams like the Lightning, even for one minute, can be costly.
"Close obviously doesn't cut it in this league," Tavares said. "We have to stay with it, build off the chances we created and bounce back. I don't think you want to hang your head. But you're disappointed in the result; you have high expectations for yourself."
Translation: Moral victories don't count for points in the standings.
Yes, the Maple Leafs are a better team this season with Tavares in the lineup. Optimism abounds in Toronto for a team that has gone 6-3-1 in its past 10 games. Yet, even with that string of success, they have dropped five points to the Lightning, who are 9-1-0 in that same span.
When Tavares was signed to a seven-year, $77 million contract on July 1, general manager Kyle Dubas said the Maple Leafs' goal was to win the Atlantic Division. The logic was sound: with three strong teams in the division in the Lightning, Maple Leafs and Boston Bruins, finishing first means avoiding playing one of the other two in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Lightning did that last season, defeating the New Jersey Devils in five games in the Eastern Conference First Round. That left the Maple Leafs and Bruins battling through seven games of a grueling first-round series, which Boston won. The Lightning then defeated the Bruins in five games in the second round.
The Maple Leafs showed they have closed the gap on the Lightning in terms of on-ice talent and performance Thursday. What they weren't able to do is close the gap in the standings. That's something they'll need to address by the time these teams next meet at Amalie Arena on Jan. 17.