Johnson put Tampa Bay ahead for good barely two minutes after Detroit’s Brad Richards made it 2-2 with a power-play goal.
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More from this morning: The Red Wings, down 2-0 in the series, are making some significant changes to their lineup, starting in goal, with Petr Mrazek starting over Jimmy Howard, who lost the first two games.
Detroit and Tampa Bay played an extremely even third period.
The Detroit Red Wings face a must-win Sunday night when they host the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of their opening round Stanley Cup playoff series.
Now the Lightning will need to shake up their lines for the remainder of this contest, and their penalty kill could take a bit of a hit.
“You guys are giving me a lot of credit but I think you’ve got to give everybody else credit and our fans up there”.
“He is leading the way right now. It is huge for us”. Nikita Kucherov netted his third goal of the series and Ben Bishop finished with 30 saves to help the Lightning retain home-ice advantage.
Though the Lightning did what they were supposed to do in winning to first two games at home, they also imposed their will and style on the game.
Linemates Nikita Kucherov (three goals, two assists) and Alex Killorn (two goals, two assists) have come up big, too. At a time like this, where the competition level is higher than ever, you don’t want to be a team chasing your tail coming into the third period. “They would probably pull the goalie so I try to just hold him so we’d get the power play”.
During Tampa Bay’s morning skate at Joe Louis Arena on Sunday, Condra slotted in at left wing on the Bolts’ fourth line with Brian Boyle (center) and Mike Blunden (right wing).
“It’s just a scrum”. “Didn’t come up with the result we wanted, but it’s just one game”. “It happens”, Blunden said. “It’s part of the game now and we have to be there to answer the bell”. Red Wings coach Jeff Blashill coached a Grand Rapids team that had nine current Detroit players on it and Jon Cooper spent most of the season as Syracuse’s coach with a roster that included seven current Lightning players. Bishop headed to the bench for an extra skater and Brendan Smith tempted Braydon Coburn to get physical in front of the Detroit net. The Lightning lead the best-of-seven series two games to one.
Tomorrow is Detroit’s chance to step up and look like a team that can play together both offensively and defensively.
“We knew from a year ago the series was going to be tight, that every inch of the ice was going to be tough to go through”.
The Blues appeared to have taken a 2-1 lead with 7:46 left in regulation on the second goal of the game from Tarasenko, but the Blackhawks challenged the goal and after a video review it was ruled that Jori Lehtera had been offside on the play. He scored at 6:32, then again at 14:48 as the Lightning built its lead.
Quite possibly the worst penalty was the one Justin Abdelkader took only 27 seconds after the slash by Gustav Nyquist.
If the Red Wings lose this series to the Lightning, it would mark the third consecutive season the Red Wings would be ousted in the first round.
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Henrik Zetterberg called it an “overall good game”.
