Kyle Dubas spotted chirping Lightning fans during the Leafs’ Game 3 win

Kyle Dubas certainly brought The Passion into Tampa on Saturday night.

The Toronto Maple Leafs general manager was spotted chirping Tampa Bay Lightning fans from inside his box at Amalie Arena during Game 3 of the Eastern Conference quarterfinal playoff series between the two teams.

Morgan Rielly ultimately scored in overtime to give the Maple Leafs a huge 4-3 victory in hostile territory. But the intensity shown by both teams on the ice was only surpassed by Dubas in the clip shown below.

As for the content of the exchange between Dubas and the fans, we’re not too sure. We’ll leave the guesswork to the lip-readers in the audience.

Dubas had plenty of reasons to be excited about his team’s performance on Saturday. The Leafs gutted out an enormous come-from-behind victory to take a 2-1 series lead into Monday’s Game 4.

Ryan O’Reilly scored with exactly a minute remaining in regulation time to force extra time in Tampa. And although it looked like the Leafs and Lightning might have to keep grinding away through a second extra period, Rielly scored from distance with less a minute remaining in the first overtime to seal the win.

Game 3 represented a significant change from the first two games of the series, both of which saw the winning team score seven goals in a blowout. Saturday’s contest was truly a see-saw affair, with the Leafs leading 1-0 and 2-1 before falling behind 3-2 midway through the second period.

The Lightning outshot the Leafs by a 39-27 margin in Game 3, with Toronto netminder Ilya Samsonov making 36 saves to secure his third career Stanley Cup Playoff win. You can bet Leafs head coach Sheldon Keefe will turn right back to Samsonov two days from now.

As you all know, the Maple Leafs haven’t made it out of the first round of the playoffs since 2004, but they’ll be able to come within a win of changing that if they emerge victorious from Game 4 at Amalie Arena on Monday at 5:30 p.m. ET.