Tuesday night at the Air Canada Centre was another measuring stick game for the Maple Leafs.
And just like they did in Las Vegas on Sunday, Toronto came out on the short end against league-leading Tampa Bay.
The Leafs held their own, and then some, over the first half of the game.
But the Lightning finally broke through with a couple of goals in the last half of the second period and went on to beat the Buds 2-0.
Toronto’s path to playoff greatness will likely have to travel through T-Bay, a thought all other Eastern Conference teams are going to have to come to grips with.
Truth be told, the Leafs are a notch below Tampa in terms of talent, top to bottom in their lineup.
They’re close, but on paper, Toronto doesn’t have two superstar forwards like Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov and they certainly don’t have anything close to the Bolts’ blueline, which includes stud defencemen Victor Hedman and Mikhail Sergachev.
The Leafs, however, still went toe-to-toe with the mid-season Stanley Cup favourites from the Sunshine State.
That has to give Toronto some level of comfort, and confidence, as they hit the halfway point of the regular season sitting very comfortably in a playoff spot.