The Leafs’ Zach Hyman celebrates a goal on Anton Stralman and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy of the Lightning on Feb. 26, 2018.Scott Audette
It was that time of year in the National Hockey League that can make or break a hockey club's season; trade deadline day.
The deadline rumbled through at 3 p.m. Eastern on Monday, several hours before a couple of Eastern Conference heavyweights, the Tampa Bay Lightning and Toronto Maple Leafs, were to resume hostilities here at Amalie Arena.
And the Lightning would ruin the debut in a Leafs jersey of Tomas Plekanec, skating to a 4-3 shootout victory to increase their hold on first place in the East to five points over Toronto.
The Leafs have been hot of late as the setback was just their second in their past 11 outings.
Chris Kunitz, Tyler Johnson and Adam Erne scored for the Lightning in regulation while James van Riemsdyk, Mitch Marner and Tyler Bozak replied for the Leafs.
After the five-minute overtime session proved nothing, the Lightning prevailed in the shootout session with Tampa Bay's Brayden Point scoring the only goal, going top shelf on Toronto goaltender Frederik Andersen.
Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy turned aside all three Toronto shootout participants - William Nylander, Tyler Bozak and van Riemsdyk.
"It was nice we battled back and had some chances in overtime," Bozak said. "It was a great hockey game."
"That wasn't one of our better games by any means," said Toronto coach Mike Babcock, adding that it was still nice to pocket the point for getting the game into overtime.
Both teams have designs on the big prize at the end of the season - the Stanley Cup - and the Leafs arrived in Florida having already stuck their toes in the trading pool, obtaining solid two-way centre Plekanec in a swap brokered Sunday with the Montreal Canadiens.
Tampa Bay came into the Toronto game with the NHL's best record but that was not going to prevent another Lightning strike delivered just before the 3 p.m. deadline, landing lockdown defenceman Ryan McDonagh in a massive deal with the Rangers.
The rebuilding Rangers also gave up centre J.T. Miller in exchange for Vlad Namestnikov, Brett Howden, Libor Hajek, a 2018 first-round draft pick and a conditional 2019 second-round pick.
For a team that was already leading the NHL in wins, Steve Yzerman, Tampa Bay's vice-president and general manager, was coy when asked if the move was clear proof that the franchise was "all-in" in its drive to win the cup this year.
"I never look at it as all-in," Yzerman said. "We're trying to do everything we can to improve our team to give us the best chance we can to win the Stanley Cup."
Earlier in the day, before the deal was announced, Lightning coach Jon Cooper was discussing the pros and cons of adding and subtracting on trade deadline day with reporters when the gushing sound of a toilet flushing in an adjacent room made its presence known.
It kind of meshed with Cooper's theory that just because a team may add a name or two at trade deadline it doesn't guarantee their season may still not just go down the drain.
"Ultimately, when 16 teams get in - and we've seen it in recent history - it doesn't matter whether they're the first seed or the eighth seed," Cooper said. "It's all about how you're preparing and the depth you've added to have yourself make a push.
"Some teams add stuff and some teams don't. In the end, none of it matters if you're not healthy. You can make all the trades you want, they all get hurt, what does it matter. So you need a lot of things to go your way to advance."
Plekanec arrived in time to participate in the morning skate with his new team and try to get his head around pulling on the jersey of an arch-rival after 15 seasons in Montreal.
And he had obligingly conformed to the no-facial-hair edict as mandated by Lou Lamoriello, the GM of the Leafs, having scraped away his goatee that he was sporting as a Hab.
"Right away [after the trade], I got messages from guys I played with that played under Lou," Plekanec said. "And they told me right away you got to shave that thing."
Babcock spent 10 years as the coach of the Detroit Red Wings before taking the job in Toronto so he knows that the transition for Plekanec could be unnerving.
"Obviously a mature player, knows how to play without the puck, good faceoff guy … can penalty kill for us and can play against the best players," Babcock said about the new addition. "What we're trying to do is to get as deep a group as we can possibly have. There's always injuries, you want to be prepared for that, too. And then just set yourself up the best you possibly can.
"So we're excited to have him."
Toronto opened a 2-1 lead in the first period, but it would not hold up with two unanswered goals by the Lightning in the middle frame putting the home side up 3-2.
Bozak scored on the power play early in the third to level things up again.
Marner missed a glorious chance to put Toronto ahead after being awarded a penalty shot with just over six minutes left. But his deke attempt was thwarted by Vasilevskiy who made a nice pad save.