Sunday in the Stanley Cup playoffs featured the Maple Leafs getting stomped in Tampa, the Oilers getting stymied at last, and a Bruins star looking every bit the part once again.
Here are five things to know as we head into Monday's post-season action:
LEAFS AMBUSHED BY LIGHTNING
With a chance to take a 3-1 stranglehold on their series, the Toronto Maple Leafs were jumped on early by the Tampa Bay Lightning and now enter a best-of-three after getting steamrolled 7-3.
Steven Stamkos scored a minute into the game and Toronto trailed 3-0 before the game was even eight minutes old.
Tampa led 5-0 after the first two periods.
QUICK TURNAROUND
After scoring 14 goals over their last two games to take a 2-1 series lead, the Edmonton Oilers were blanked 4-0 by Jonathan Quick and the Los Angeles Kings.
That series is now knotted up at two games apiece.
Quick stopped all 31 shots he faced as he bounced back from a pair of poor showings.
The 36-year-old turned aside 30-of-36 shots in Edmonton's 6-0 win in Game 2 and just 13 of 17 in the Oilers' 8-2 victory in Game 3.
MARCHAND COMES UP BIG AGAIN
For the second straight game in the series, Brad Marchand was the best player on the ice.
The Bruins star followed up a three-point effort in Game 3 with five points in Game 4 as he scored or assisted on all of Boston's goals in their 5-2 win that evened up their series with the Carolina Hurricanes 2-2.
BINNINGTON GETS THE START AND GETS THE WIN
Though initially supplanted by Ville Husso to start this post-season, Jordan Binnington got the start Sunday for the Blues and delivered as St. Louis evened up its series with the Minnesota Wild with a 5-2 win.
The win was Binnington's first in the playoffs since the Blues beat the Bruins in Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup Final.
St. Louis head coach Craig Berube went with Binnington in Game 4 because Husso had been shaky in the team's previous two games, surrendering nine goals on 59 shots combined.
"We wanted to make a switch and just change the momentum and luck a little bit," the Blues coach told reporters.
FLAMES NEED TO FIND THEIR FUEL
Over the first three games of their first-round series with the Dallas Stars, the Calgary Flames have scored just three goals.
They'll need a lot more output than that heading into Game 4 in Dallas Monday night trailing 2-1.
Elias Lindholm has contributed to two of those markers while the other came from fourth-line centre Trevor Lewis.
For a team that ranked sixth in goals per game and boasted three different 40-goal scorers during the regular season, this bout of goal-scoring anemia has been quite surprising.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 9, 2022.
The Canadian Press
