Lightning shut out for 2nd straight game, fall to Maple Leafs

Eduardo A. Encina, Tampa Bay Times on Dec 8, 2025

Published in Hockey

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The Tampa Bay Lightning arrived in Toronto with their Atlantic Division lead disintegrated after losing three straight games. Because of that, their first regular-season meeting with the rival Maple Leafs Monday night at Scotiabank Arena meant a little extra.

Entering the night, the top seven teams in the Atlantic were separated by just four points, so every meeting with a division foe was a potential four-point swing.

Even though the best offensive teams go through scoring droughts, this wasn’t the best time for them to go through such a dry spell.

The Lightning’s losing streak reached four games with a 2-0 loss to the Leafs. All four were one-goal games going into the final minute, so the line between winning and losing has been a fine one for Tampa Bay.

The Lightning have done so many good things in recent games. They’ve played stout defense. They’ve received solid goaltending, including the past three games from Jonas Johansson filling in for injured starter Andrei Vasilevskiy. They’ve started games strong and outshot their opponent. They’ve created plenty of scoring chances.

But you can’t win if you aren’t scoring goals.

The Lightning were shut out for the second straight game, held scoreless for six straight periods despite a fine 22-save effort from Johansson.

It marked the first time the Lightning have been shut out in consecutive games in more than two years, since losses at Carolina and St. Louis on Nov. 11 and 14, 2023.

Over the past four games, the Lightning have scored just three goals in the first and second periods.

After they were blanked Saturday at home by the New York Islanders, the Lightning received a boost by getting back two of their top scorers in Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov. Point had missed the last seven games and hadn’t played since Nov. 22 at Washington. Kucherov missed Saturday’s game.

But their return didn’t net any more offense. The only goals of the game were scored by Toronto defenseman Morgan Rielly with 3:34 left in the first period and Auston Matthews into an empty net with 0.6 seconds remaining.

Rielly’s goal came on a broken play, as a pass went off Yanni Gourde’s skate and to Rielly trailing on the rush. Jake Guentzel prevented Rielly from getting a good shot off with a backcheck, but Rielly was able to regain possession and tuck the puck behind Johansson, who had come out of the crease to challenge.

The Lightning had 13 scoring chances in the first period and outshot Toronto 15-10 in the opening 20 minutes but went into the first intermission trailing.

With a 6-on-5 advantage in the final minute, a Darren Raddysh shot attempt from the point was tipped by Brandon Hagel in front. It hit off the left post and was behind Toronto goaltender Dennis Hildeby, but Hildeby was able to cover through traffic.

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