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Series highlights: Matthew Tkachuk dominates the Lightning in his return to action
Marc-Olivier Cook
Series highlights: Matthew Tkachuk dominates the Lightning in his return to action
Credit: Getty Images
There were four playoff games in the NHL last night.

And some teams got into it.

Let’s take a look at what happened:

1: Matthew Tkachuk is too strong for the Lightning

The Panthers began the defense of their championship last night. And it went well, with the Florida outfit beating Tampa Bay 6-2.

The Panthers opened the scoring early in the game, but Jake Guentzel tied the score moments later:

It wasn’t long before we saw the two teams – who don’t like each other – start taking the piss.

There’s plenty of breaststroke throughout the match… and that promises to be the case for the rest of the series :

But the hero of this game was Matthew Tkachuk.

The Panthers’ star player’s last game was on February 20 (Canada vs. USA final at 4 Nations), and despite everything, he was dominant last night.

Tkachuk finished the game with two goals and an assist, and was the spark plug for his club throughout.

His three points gave the Panthers a 1-0 series lead:

What a matchup between the Leafs and Sens

The Leafs were really ready to take on the Senators last night.

After 10 minutes of play… it was already 2-0 in Toronto’s favor thanks to goals from Morgan Rielly and John Tavares.

But the Sens didn’t give up.

They managed to tie the game, and overtime was needed to determine a winner between the two clubs:

There’s a great rivalry between the two Ontario teams and we really saw it last night.

Especially on this sequence, where we can see Anthony Stolarz getting violent with his stick to “bother” Ridly Greig in front of the Leafs’ net.

Ah… and there was no penalty on the play:

Leafs fans didn’t have to wait long before celebrating the game-winning goal.

Just over three minutes into overtime, Max Domi gave his club the win with a fine shot from the slot.

The series moves to Ottawa and the Sens will have their work cut out for them as they trail 0-2 at the moment.

Kirill Kaprizov is really good

The Wild won last night by a score of 5-2, and they can thank Kirill Kaprizov.

Because the Russian was excellent in Game 2 of the series against the Golden Knights. He collected two goals and an assist in the victory:

The Wild had a nice 4-1 lead after 40 minutes of play.

At the start of the third period, the Golden Knights attempted a comeback… and Tomas Hertl threaded the needle.

But the damage had already been done. Kaprizov scored his second goal of the game in an empty net and the Wild tied the series 1-1 with a 5-2 victory.

Not all was rosy for Kaprizov in the game, who ate a couple of coconut punches during a late-game scrum.

I have a feeling that the next match will be interesting to watch:

Hurricanes look too strong for Devils

When a team plays without its best offensive player, it’s hard to get results.

Talk about the Devils… who face the Hurricanes in the first round of the playoffs without the services of Jack Hughes.

New Jersey opened the scoring in yesterday’s game with a Jesper Bratt goal, but that was the Devils’ only moment of glory in the game.

Shayne Gostisbehere, Jordan Martinook and Seth Jarvis (empty net) scored three unanswered goals and the Hurricanes won 3-1 :

The Hurricanes now have a 2-0 lead in the series. The next two games will be played in New Jersey.

The Devils had better wake up… because they won’t be able to beat the Hurricanes by scoring just one goal per game.

The club has scored twice in as many games so far…

But even on the physical side, it looks like the Hurricanes are too strong for the Devils. Brent Burns made his mark on the ice last night:


Extension

– Wow.

– Top scorers of the night :

(Credit: NHL.com)

– Three games tonight, including the Habs :

(Credit: NHL.com)
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