Alexander Kerfoot scored 4:14 into overtime as the Toronto Maple Leafs defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-4 in Game 4 of their Eastern Conference First Round series at the Amalie Arena.
Toronto leads the series 3-1 and will return home for Game 5 on Thursday night to try and close out the three-time defending Eastern Conference champions.
Auston Matthews scored twice and William Nylander had three assists. Ilya Samsonov made 27 saves for the Maple Leafs.
Alex Killorn had two goals and Mikhail Sergachev had a goal and an assist for Tampa Bay while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 32 shots.
"It was all going good, but in the end special teams became a factor in the game", said Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper.
"They got two big power-play goals in the end and we didn't cash in on our chance early in the third. Take one of theirs away or we get one ... it's a different story."
Matthews helps Maple Leafs come back from big deficit to shock Lightning
Killorn put Tampa Bay in front 9:57 into the game as Nikita Kucherov fed him a pass into the crease and he beat Samsonov with Tampa Bay on the power play.
Sergachev made it 2-0 with 1:33 left in the first period, his shot from the top of the left circle set up by Kucherov and that would be the score after one.
Noel Acciari cut the lead in half less than five minutes into the second period, redirecting a shot by Justin Holl that was going wide.
A shot by Victor Hedman went off of the left skate of Steven Stamkos and in to give him his first goal of the series and restore the Lightning's two-goal lead in fortunate circumstances.
Killorn scored his second of the game with 1:11 in the middle period as his shot from the left circle beat Samsonov to the far post.
Matthews began Toronto's comeback, a snap shot from inside the left circle making it 4-2 and less than three minutes later, his tip from a Nylander shot made it a one-goal game with 7:31 left to play.
"About halfway through the second period, we started to find our game a little bit and the ice started to shift a little bit even though we were down by three", he said.
"But the attitude and the mindset in the locker room was just to go out there and chip away."
Morgan Rielly completed Toronto's three-goal third period, a shot from the left point through traffic.
"I thought we came out in the third period and played really well", Rielly said. "I thought we were playing well before that. We were in a position going into the third down 4-1, that's not where you want to be.
"But to have the compete and the jam to go out there and come back is a good sign."
Kerfoot then won it on a redirection of Mark Giordano's shot to put Toronto on the cusp of their first playoff series win since 2004.
"That's what you dream about, scoring goals in overtime in the playoffs", Kerfoot said. "There was a lot of belief in that room after the first two periods.
"We started to put the heat on them a little bit and our big guys came through and got it to overtime."
Maple Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe said following the win "I hope we look at this as a positive sign of the spirit of our team and what we can overcome.
"I hope they take that and recognize that we have to keep pushing. The team we found a way to win tonight, they are who they are because they very rarely lose two in a row, obviously don't lose three in a row very often and winning four in a row is going to be even harder. That's not lost on us."