Tampa Bay’s Ross Colton, right, celebrates with defenseman Victor Hedman after scoring against the Toronto Maple Leafs in Game 4 of their first-round playoff series Sunday in Tampa, Fla. Chris O’Meara/Associated Press
TAMPA, Fla. — Ross Colton scored twice, Andrei Vasilevskiy had 22 saves and the Tampa Bay Lightning got off to a fast start and beat the Toronto Maple Leafs 7-3 in Game 4 on Sunday night to even their first-round playoff series.
Steven Stamkos, Pierre Edouard Bellemare and Pat Maroon scored in the first eight minutes against Game 3 star Jack Campbell, setting the tone for a long night for the Toronto goalie.
Corey Perry and Ondrej Palat also scored, and Brandon Hagel and Nikita Kucherov each had two assists for the Lightning.
Vasilevskiy improved to 17-0 in games following a playoff loss over the past three postseasons for the two-time defending Stanley Cup champions.
William Nylander scored twice and Jake Muzzin also had a goal for the Maple Leafs. Campbell gave up five goals on 16 shots before being replaced in the second period by Erik Kallgren.
Game 5 is Tuesday night in Toronto.
BLUES 5, WILD 2: Jordan Kyrou and David Perron each scored twice, Jordan Binnington made 28 saves in his first start this postseason and St. Louis won at home to even the best-of-seven Western Conference series at 2-2.
Ryan O’Reilly added a goal and two assists, and Perron also had an assist for St. Louis.
Kirill Kaprizov and Matt Boldy scored for Minnesota. Marc-Andre Fleury made 29 saves.
Game 5 is Tuesday night at St. Paul, Minnesota. The series returns to St. Louis for Game 6 on Thursday.
Kyrou and Perron scored 54 seconds apart in the second period to break a 1-1 tie.
Perron converted the go-ahead score on a shot that squeezed past Fleury. Minnesota forward Marcus Foligno tried to keep the puck from rolling across the line, but he flipped it off the back of Fleury and into the net.
Kyrou got his second of the game to push the lead to 3-1 with a shot off a pass from Ryan O’Reilly, who assisted on both second-period goals.
Boldy cut the deficit to 3-2 by scoring off a scramble 2:39 into the final period.
Perron added an empty-net goal with 1:58 remaining, and O’Reilly’s power-play goal with 1 minute left capped the scoring.
Binnington, who had lost his previous nine postseason starts, picked up his first playoff win since beating Boston in Game 7 of the 2019 Stanley Cup final. He denied Kaprizov from point-blank range late in the second period. Binnington also stopped Mats Zuccarello on a 2-on-1 breakout midway through the final period.
St. Louis struck first when Kyrou pounced on his own rebound just 4:19 into the game.
Kaprizov tied it 1-1 with his fifth goal of the series off a pass from Jared Spurgeon with 5:54 left in the opening period.
NOTES
FINES: Washington’s Evgeny Kuznetsov and Jamie Benn of Dallas were fined $5,000 for high sticking after a pair of incidents Saturday that didn’t get penalized during their games.
Kuznetsov’s play against Florida’s Noel Acciari came in the first period of the Capitals’ 6-1 victory in Game 3, which put Washington up 2-1 in the Eastern Conference first-round series.
Benn’s infraction against Calgary’s Andrew Mangiapane was in the middle of the second period of the Stars’ 4-2 victory in Game 3. Dallas leads the Western Conference first-round series, 2-1.
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