Tampa Bay Lightning center Alex Killorn (left) celebrates his power play goal during the third period of an NHL hockey game Thursday, March 5, 2015, in Tampa, Fla.Dirk Shadd/The Associated Press
With 17 games left in the regular season of this lost year for the Toronto Maple Leafs jobs are still on the line.
Peter Holland knows it, and it is one reason why he keeps sticking his nose into other people's business when he is on the ice.
Although the Leafs outplayed Tampa Bay over the final two periods of the game, it was not enough as the Lightning hung on for a 4-2 victory over Toronto before a sold out Amalie Arena on Thursday night.
After spotting the Lightning, one of the National Hockey League's better outfits, a 2-0 lead in the first period with some atrocious work in their own end, the Leafs at least didn't pack it in.
They battled and, in Holland's case, they fought, to at least make their presence felt.
Holland, centring a line between David Booth and Richard Panik, got into a tussle with Tampa forward Cedric Paquette toward the end of the second period.
It led to five minute fighting majors for both players and was a fight where Holland landed the first punch.
"I think I was just having a physical shift," Holland said. "I had a couple hits out there before it started and then just kind of confronted each other after the whistle.
"My Dad always told me, make sure you're the first one to know you're in a fight so it's just kind of what happened."
The scrappiness is something that Holland said he expects to play with from here on out until the end of the year.
"I think at this time of year it's important to establish yourself and fight for a job next season," he said. "I want to make sure I'm using my size to my advantage in being more physical. And I think it's created more space for myself and my linemates and I'm finding I'm getting the puck more when I do that."
Eric Brewer was playing in his first game since getting traded to Toronto at Monday's NHL trade deadline.
The journeyman defenceman has not even had an opportunity to have full practice and the lack of preparation showed in the first period where the Lightning opened up a 2-0 lead.
Brewer was caught way out of position on the first goal when Nikita Kucherov drilled a shot over Toronto goaltender Jonathan Bernier's right shoulder for a 1-0 Tampa lead at the 4:25 mark.
On the second Tampa goal credited to Ryan Callahan, the puck deflected off Brewer's stick and into the net.
Brewer was not about to cut himself any slack when it was mentioned afterward that perhaps the hiccups in his game were to be expected given the circumstances of his arrival.
"I don't expect anything to go wrong," he said. "I think we expect it to go right and then we'll deal with whatever comes."
And don't bother trying to feed Brewer any guff about at least the Leafs closed out the game well.
"It's not good enough, you've got to play better," he said. "You can't continue to make excuses for games that you've lost. And you can say you've played two good periods and you should have played three."
The Leafs rebounded in the second period with a goal by David Booth on a nice goalmouth feed from Holland that cut Tampa's lead to 2-1 heading into the third.
Third period markers by Vladislav Namestnikov and Alex Killorn sealed the win for the Lightning.
Joffrey Lupul scored late for the Leafs.
"I didn't like the first because we turned the puck over 11 times and that put us on our heels," groused Toronto interim coach Peter Horachek. "And they score those two goals and again we're chasing the game again.
"We played much better in the second period and we had some chances and had some opportunities. But you can't start games off that way. We have to be mentally ready to play better than that."