How Game 5 of Leafs-Lightning will be won: Pathways to victory for each team
It started as a series of blowouts. It became a matchup defined by comebacks.
What’s remained the same throughout is that the Toronto Maple Leafs and Tampa Bay Lightning haven’t lacked for drama in their Eastern Conference first-round playoff series.
And the Leafs have got their foes on the ropes.
Let’s recap: The Atlantic Division rivals traded multigoal victories in Toronto to tie the series at 1-1 before it shifted down to Tampa. There, the Lightning blew late leads in regulation of Games 3 and 4, lost both tilts in overtime and are on the brink of elimination in a 3-1 series hole.
Tampa Bay heads back to Toronto for Game 5 on Thursday night, with nothing left to do but win its next three hockey games. Meanwhile, the Leafs have three cracks at closing out the recent back-to-back Stanley Cup champions and finally, for the first time in nearly 20 years, advance past the opening round of a playoff series.
Can the Lightning rally — and rattle — Toronto enough to still come out on top? Or will the Leafs quiet their critics — and quit being a punchline — by actually finishing off an opponent?
“It feels different,” Toronto coach Sheldon Keefe said of his team after Game 4. “But we’ve got a tough task ahead.”
Here are five keys to victory for the Leafs and Lightning before Thursday’s battle of the blue-and-whites in Game 5:
Engage with urgency from the opening draw
Toronto overcame a one-goal deficit in Game 3 to win 4-3. It roared back from a three-goal disadvantage to take Game 4. That’s all well and good. But waiting until the last minute to come alive is unsustainable for the Leafs, especially with the Lightning playing with more desperation.
Urgency — or a lack thereof — has been Toronto’s downfall before. And the Leafs know full well Tampa Bay is capable of clawing back into a series. In last season’s first-round meeting, the Lightning were down 2-1 and 3-2 before closing the Leafs out in Game 7.
It’s no wonder Auston Matthews noted after the Leafs’ Game 4 victory: “The fourth [win] is the hardest to get.”
That has long held true for Toronto, and not just against Tampa Bay. There’s a reason the Leafs haven’t won a postseason series since 2004 and have been tossed from the opening round of their past six playoff (or play-in) opportunities. The Leafs don’t have to look far back to the last time they blew a 3-1 series lead; it was just two seasons ago against the Montreal Canadiens.
It’s time to finish this off.
Instead of letting Tampa Bay dictate the tone — as Toronto did for too much of Games 3 and 4 — it should be the Leafs taking it to the Lightning in Game 5. It should be Toronto playing like its season is on the line. Momentum is a powerful thing. The Leafs have it, and for once they can wield it properly — toward earning a series-deciding win — instead of handing the power back to the opposition.
Beware of vintage, Vezina-worthy Vasilevskiy
It’s been a particularly difficult playoff series for Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy. He might also be the most well-suited goaltender in the league to produce a Herculean response.
So far, Vasilevskiy is 1-3-0 with a 4.33 goals-against average and .856 save percentage. He’s allowed more goals in this four-game span (19) than any other such stretch in his playoff career. That total is also tied for the second-most goals given up by a netminder through the first four games of a playoff series since 1984.
Bottom line? Like much of Tampa Bay’s lineup, its goaltender hasn’t been good enough. There’s no victory in sight for the Lightning if that doesn’t change.
“We scored enough goals to win,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said following Tampa’s 5-4 loss in Game 4. “You’ve got to keep them out of your net.”
Fortunately for the Lightning, there’s a long history of Vasilevskiy doing just that. He entered this postseason with enviable stats, a 63-38-0 playoff record, including seven shutouts — six of which have come in elimination games.
Basically, Vasilevskiy has been the Lightning’s backbone with their season(s) on the line. Cooper pointed out that several of the goals Vasilevskiy allowed late in Game 4 were tips and deflections, strikes that any goaltender — even ones who have won the Vezina Trophy, Conn Smythe Trophy and Stanley Cup — would struggle to stop.
Vasilevskiy can’t undo what’s happened. But he can still be that clutch performer Tampa Bay has relied on for the past decade. And few things would get into Toronto’s heads quite like seeing Vasilevskiy go full-on shutdown mode with so much at stake.
Don’t deviate; elevate
The Leafs’ supposedly improved depth was a constant talking point heading into this series.
Lo and behold, the rumors were true. Toronto has graduated beyond just relying on its core of star players — namely Matthews, Mitch Marner and William Nylander — and has attacked the Lightning from all angles (and every line) throughout the past four games.
To date, the Leafs have had 10 different goal scorers, seen six players pass the six-point mark, and gotten key contributions from one rookie (Matthew Knies) and two trade-deadline acquisitions: Ryan O’Reilly, with seven points, and Noel Acciari with two goals.
The Leafs’ chemistry is palpable. The trick is not to overthink it.
Toronto already made one key decision in deciding not to insert Michael Bunting back into the lineup for Game 5. The feisty top-line forward was suspended three games for elbowing and interference against Tampa defenseman Erik Cernak in Game 1. He was eligible to return for Game 5, but Keefe said Wednesday that Bunting will remain on the bench.
Ultimately Keefe decided that, despite what Bunting brought to the team with a 49-point regular season effort, it wasn’t worth disrupting the group that has won three straight playoff games. Not that he’s afraid to move players around — at Wednesday’s practice, Knies had been elevated to the Leafs’ second line with Tavares and Marner.
That’s just a further example of how the Leafs can continue using all the players they have to keep Tampa Bay on its toes — and avoid their previous fate as a one-dimensional foe.
“[I like] the top-to-bottom six and that’s part of the decision to not insert Bunting in, [so we’re] maintaining that,” Keefe said. “We’re trying to establish something where we are comfortable playing all four lines. That was our intention going into the series. We thought we were in a good spot that way and had to adjust along the way, which is what we had to do the other night [in Game 4]. The players responded well, we can always make other adjustments if needed, but we like to group [this] way.”
Lightning need full team effort on defense
“In the end, you’ve got to defend,” Cooper noted after Game 4. “And you’ve got to keep the puck out of your net.”
That’s been easier said than done for Tampa Bay lately, but it has established the right blueprint of what not to do.
The primary problem is that Tampa Bay’s blueline isn’t the same without Cernak. He’s been absent since the Game 1 hit by Bunting, and he won’t be dressing for Game 5, either.
Victor Hedman missed time early in the series because of an injury and is likely not at 100%. Mikhail Sergachev has been banged up and briefly left Game 4 after blocking a shot from O’Reilly. The Lightning are leaning on rookies Darren Raddysh and Nick Perbix to play critical minutes, and they’ve delivered admirably. What Tampa Bay truly requires, though, is more defensive buy-in across the board.
“In the totality of things, would we like to have Cernak in our lineup, a top-four defenseman for us? Yes,” Cooper said. “[But] we’ve gotten in our own way, obviously, at some of these points.”
Toronto learned the hard way in Game 1’s disastrous 7-3 loss that if it didn’t start wrapping up the Lightning’s top-flight forwards in front of the net and stopping them from setting up a strong cycle, it was about to be a short series. Tampa Bay must make the same investment in its end.
Instead of leaving Vasilevskiy out to dry, it’s on Tampa Bay’s entire five-man units to be pressuring Leafs’ skaters to the outside and not allowing them to set up in front. Pushing shots through traffic is how Toronto worked its way back in Game 4, and a tighter effort from the Lightning — particularly through the neutral zone — won’t allow the Leafs those opportunities to get in Vasilevskiy’s line of vision.
Cooper admitted his team might have sat back in the third period of that Game 4 loss. There’s nothing like the threat of impending elimination to light a fire under any player — regardless of superstar status — to do the dirty work necessary that keeps a team’s hopes alive for a Game 6.
Wanted: Perked-up PKs
Special teams play an important role in every postseason series.
The charitable thing to say is that Tampa Bay and Toronto have been equally good in this one on the power play. Another reality is that, at times, both teams’ penalty kills have been something of an eyesore.
Going into Game 5, Toronto is at 70.6% on the PK (and 6-for-17 on the power play).
Tampa Bay is even worse at 64.7% on the PK (and 5-for-17 on the power play).
Will this all-important, potentially series-deciding Game 5 be determined by whose penalty kill is less awful?
The Lightning penalty kill gave up a game-winning power-play goal to Alexander Kerfoot in Game 4. Toronto’s kill has been discombobulated at times by Tampa Bay’s four-forward look on the man advantage (see: allowing four power-play markers in Game 1).
Staying out of the box would help, obviously. Tampa Bay has taken more penalties (27) than any team in the postseason. The Leafs aren’t far behind with 23 infractions.
There have been heroic short-handed moments from both sides, too. Key shot blocks. Dives into shooting lanes. Aggressive pressure and positive results.
It’s just takes one bad decision, though. One careless clear or sloppy turnover when you’re down a man and it won’t be even-strength play that rules the day. That can be a tough pill to swallow with results on the line.
The opening weekend of the 2025 MLB season was taken over by a surprise star — torpedo bats.
The bowling pin-shaped bats became the talk of the sport after the Yankees’ home run onslaught on the first Saturday of the season put it in the spotlight and the buzz hasn’t slowed since.
What exactly is a torpedo bat? How does it help hitters? And how is it legal? Let’s dig in.
Read: An MIT-educated professor, the Yankees and the bat that could be changing baseball
What is a torpedo bat and why is it different from a traditional MLB bat?
The idea of the torpedo bat is to take a size format — say, 34 inches and 32 ounces — and distribute the wood in a different geometric shape than the traditional form to ensure the fattest part of the bat is located where the player makes the most contact. Standard bats taper toward an end cap that is as thick diametrically as the sweet spot of the barrel. The torpedo bat moves some of the mass on the end of the bat about 6 to 7 inches lower, giving it a bowling-pin shape, with a much thinner end.
How does it help hitters?
The benefits for those who like swinging with it — and not everyone who has swung it likes it — are two-fold. Both are rooted in logic and physics. The first is that distributing more mass to the area of most frequent contact aligns with players’ swing patterns and provides greater impact when bat strikes ball. Players are perpetually seeking ways to barrel more balls, and while swings that connect on the end of the bat and toward the handle probably will have worse performance than with a traditional bat, that’s a tradeoff they’re willing to make for the additional slug. And as hitters know, slug is what pays.
The second benefit, in theory, is increased bat speed. Imagine a sledgehammer and a broomstick that both weigh 32 ounces. The sledgehammer’s weight is almost all at the end, whereas the broomstick’s is distributed evenly. Which is easier to swing fast? The broomstick, of course, because shape of the sledgehammer takes more strength and effort to move. By shedding some of the weight off the end of the torpedo bat and moving it toward the middle, hitters have found it swings very similarly to a traditional model but with slightly faster bat velocity.
Why did it become such a big story so early in the 2025 MLB season?
Because the New York Yankees hit nine home runs in a game Saturday and Michael Kay, their play-by-play announcer, pointed out that some of them came from hitters using a new bat shape. The fascination was immediate. While baseball, as an industry, has implemented forward-thinking rules in recent seasons, the modification to something so fundamental and known as the shape of a bat registered as bizarre. The initial response from many who saw it: How is this legal?
OK. How is this legal?
Major League Baseball’s bat regulations are relatively permissive. Currently, the rules allow for a maximum barrel diameter of 2.61 inches, a maximum length of 42 inches and a smooth and round shape. The lack of restrictions allows MLB’s authorized bat manufacturers to toy with bat geometry and for the results to still fall within the regulations.
Who came up with the idea of using them?
The notion of a bowling-pin-style bat has kicked around baseball for years. Some bat manufacturers made smaller versions as training tools. But the version that’s now infiltrating baseball goes back two years when a then-Yankees coach named Aaron Leanhardt started asking hitters how they should counteract the giant leaps in recent years made by pitchers.
When Yankees players responded that bigger barrels would help, Leanhardt — an MIT-educated former Michigan physics professor who left academia to work in the sports industry — recognized that as long as bats stayed within MLB parameters, he could change their geometry to make them a reality. Leanhardt, who left the Yankees to serve as major league field coordinator for the Miami Marlins over the winter, worked with bat manufacturers throughout the 2023 and 2024 seasons to make that a reality.
When did it first appear in MLB games?
It’s unclear specifically when. But Yankees slugger Giancarlo Stanton used a torpedo bat last year and went on a home run-hitting rampage in October that helped send the Yankees to the World Series. New York Mets star Francisco Lindor also used a torpedo-style bat last year and went on to finish second in National League MVP voting.
Who are some of the other notable early users of torpedo bats?
In addition to Stanton and Lindor, Yankees hitters Anthony Volpe, Austin Wells, Jazz Chisholm Jr., Cody Bellinger and Paul Goldschmidt have used torpedoes to great success. Others who have used them in games include Tampa Bay’s Junior Caminero, Minnesota’s Ryan Jeffers and Toronto’s Davis Schneider. And that’s just the beginning. Hundreds more players are expected to test out torpedoes — and perhaps use them in games — in the coming weeks.
How is this different from a corked bat?
Corking bats involves drilling a hole at the end of the bat, filling it in and capping it. The use of altered bats allows players to swing faster because the material with which they replace the wood — whether it’s cork, superballs or another material — is lighter. Any sort of bat adulteration is illegal and, if found, results in suspension.
Could a rule be changed to ban them?
Could it happen? Sure. Leagues and governing bodies have put restrictions on equipment they believe fundamentally altered fairness. Stick curvature is limited in hockey. Full-body swimsuits made of polyurethane and neoprene are banned by World Aquatics. But officials at MLB have acknowledged that the game’s pendulum has swung significantly toward pitching in recent years, and if an offensive revolution comes about because of torpedo bats — and that is far from a guarantee — it could bring about more balance to the game. If that pendulum swings too far, MLB could alter its bat regulations, something it has done multiple times already this century.
So the torpedo bat is here to stay?
Absolutely. Bat manufacturers are cranking them out and shipping them to interested players with great urgency. Just how widely the torpedo bat is adopted is the question that will play out over the rest of the season. But it has piqued the curiosity of nearly every hitter in the big leagues, and just as pitchers toy with new pitches to see if they can marginally improve themselves, hitters will do the same with bats.
Comfort is paramount with a bat, so hitters will test them during batting practice and in cage sessions before unleashing them during the game. As time goes on, players will find specific shapes that are most comfortable to them and best suit their swing during bat-fitting sessions — similar to how golfers seek custom clubs. But make no mistake: This is an almost-overnight alteration of the game, and “traditional or torpedo” is a question every big leaguer going forward will ask himself.
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