Tavares scores 3, Maple Leafs top Lightning in Game 2, tie East 1st Round

TORONTO -- John Tavares scored a hat trick for the Toronto Maple Leafs in a 7-2 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round at Scotiabank Arena on Thursday.

The best-of-7 series is tied 1-1. Game 3 is at Tampa Bay on Saturday.
It was Tavares' first hat trick in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
"Any time you get a hat trick and especially one in the playoffs, it's pretty cool," Tavares said. "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, Mitchell Marner had two goals an assist and Ilya Samsonov made 20 saves for the Maple Leafs, who are the No. 2 seed in the Atlantic Division.
Toronto lost 7-3 in Game 1 on Tuesday.
"It was a great response, couldn't ask for a better start," Maple Leafs coach Sheldon Keefe said. "To earn the power play to begin with and to shoot it in the net right away like that, I thought just our overall focus and execution I thought was really sharp tonight in that 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."
[RELATED: [Complete Maple Leafs vs. Lightning series coverage]
Ian Cole and Corey Perry scored, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 30 saves for the Lightning, who were playing without defensemen Victor Hedman and Erik Cernak. Each was injured in Game 1.
"This had nothing to do with Victor Hedman being out of the game," Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. "We've won games in this league without Victor Hedman. I could sit here and go through 100 years of clichés, 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 be just a poor, poor excuse."

Marner gave Toronto a 1-0 lead 47 seconds into the first period on the power play when he received a pass from Rielly and took a slap shot from above the right face-off circle, using Mikhail Sergachev as a screen.
Tavares made it 2-0 at 12:45, taking a pass from Rielly and shooting from the left hash mark.
"Any time you can get on the board early, especially 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 Tavares, the Maple Leafs captain.
Toronto killed two minor penalties prior to Tavares' first goal, hooking on Matthew Knies -- who made his Stanley Cup Playoff debut -- at 4:23, and roughing on Jake McCabe at 10:03.
William Nylander then extended it to 3-0 at 15:08 when he shot from the left dot with six attackers on the ice during a delayed double minor high-sticking penalty on Steven Stamkos.

Tampa Bay cut it to 3-1 at 8:58 of the second period after Cole went forehand to backhand in the slot and put it past Samsonov's glove while sprawling.
The Maple Leafs responded with three goals in 4:48 to stretch the lead to five. Tavares put in a rebound at 13:14 to make it 4-1 after Nylander deflected Rielly's shot in the slot.
Zach Aston-Reese pushed it to 5-1 at 15:52, jamming in a rebound in the goal crease following David Kampf's shot.
Marner made it 6-1 at 18:02 after his shot from above the right face-off circle deflected off Lightning forward Brandon Hagel in the slot.

Cooper said he considered removing Vasilevskiy from the game after the second period, but the goalie refused to come out.
"I think we and pretty much everyone thinks he's the best goalie in the League," Cole said. "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 cut it to 6-2 at 12:38 of the third period on a 2-on-1 with Pierre-Edouard Bellemare.
Three seconds after the Lightning killed off a 5-on-3 power play for 59 seconds, Tavares completed the hat trick at 15:06 for the 7-2 final.
"We wanted to bounce back and have a good start and really respond after a Game 1 we weren't proud of, Rielly said. "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."
NOTES: Rielly tied a Maple Leafs playoff record for most assists in a game. ... Tavares' hat trick was the first in the playoffs by a Toronto player since Alexander Mogilny in Game 1 of the 2003 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals against the Philadelphia Flyers. ... Lightning forward Tanner Jeannot was held without a point in 11:38 of ice time after missing Game 1 and the last three regular-season games due to a leg injury. ... The Maple Leafs were without forward Michael Bunting, who was suspended three games for an illegal check to the head and interference against Cernak in Game 1.