Apr 12, 2018 2 min read

The Tampa Bay Lightning are off to a strong start in the NHL playoffs.

The top seed in the Eastern Conference got early goals from four players – none of them named Nikita Kucherov or Steven Stamkos – before holding off the New Jersey Devils for a 5-2 victory Thursday night in Game 1 of the first-round series.

Ondrej Palat, Tyler Johnson and Yanni Gourde scored, helping the Lightning build a 3-0 lead that New Jersey trimmed to one goal before Alex Killorn and Kucherov, who added an empty-netter with 1:12 remaining, finished off the win.

Taylor Hall scored an unassisted goal in the second period, then assisted on Travis Zajac’s power-play goal that trimmed the Devils’ deficit to 3-2 midway through third against Andrei Vasilievskiy, who had 29 saves for Tampa Bay.

Boston 5, Toronto 1: Brad Marchand, David Backes and David Krejci each scored a power-play goal, and Tuukka Rask stopped 26 shots in Boston’s Game 1 victory over Toronto.

David Pastrnak also scored for Boston, and Sean Kuraly bunted one out of the air and into the net over goalie Frederik Andersen to make it 4-1 with seven minutes gone in the third period. Krejci bounced it in off Andersen from behind to make it 5-1 after Toronto’s Nazem Kadri was thrown out of the game and given a five-minute major for an elbow to Tommy Wingels’ head.

Zach Hyman scored Toronto’s only goal, and Andersen made 35 saves.

Game 2 is Saturday night in Boston.