Killorn’s goal broke a scoreless tie with 1:43 remaining in Game 5 to lift the Lightning to their fourth win of their first round series with the Detroit Red Wings. Now the Red Wings have to win three games in a row, including two in Tampa Bay, to avoid elimination.
Advertisement
Kucharev’s second power-play goal of the game made it 2-0 with 9:29 left in the second period. Not only have they won, but bad news for the Red Wings, the Bolts seemed to have discovered lightning in a bottle with their power play. But the second period was lackluster the first 14 minutes or so, with the Wings pinned in their own zone shift after shift. The Florida-based club failed to qualify for the postseason in either of the two years preceding their sweep.
Detroit Red Wings goalie Petr Mrazek (34) stops a Tampa Bay Lightning shot as Ryan Callahan (24) sets a screen during the second period of Game 4 in a first-round NHL hockey Stanley Cup playoff series, Tuesday, April 19, 2016, in Detroit.
Last spring, in his final season as coach of the American Hockey League’s Grand Rapids Griffins, Jeff Blashill’s team faced a scenario where their playoff survival depended upon winning three straight games from the Toronto Marlies.
Kris Letang iced the game with an empty-net goal. It’s hard to believe that the refs chose the final minutes of a tied playoff game to put their foot down and say “Enough is enough” about that play.
Sidney Crosby also scored and Matt Murray made 16 saves in his return to action in helping the Penguins take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series. “But at the same time I think we’re comfortable with the opportunities that we’re creating”. Tampa Bay got 10 of the first dozen shots on net. But Detroit was unable to cope with Tampa Bay’s Nikita Kucherov and Alex Killorn, who matched Detroit’s entire production by combining for eight goals. If you’re going to concede so much on the PK you’d better be making up for it on the power play and, once again, they didn’t.
Eric Fehr, Patric Hornqvist and Conor Sheary also scored as the Penguins tallied four times on 18 shots against Henrik Lundqvist, who was lifted early in the second period.
Both keepers made big saves to keep the game to within one.
“You’re sitting at home, you don’t really know what’s going to happen”, Drouin said after the game.
“You always want to draw on that experience that we’ve had in the past where we’ve been in situations before when we’ve been trailing and we’ve been able to find a way”, defenseman Duncan Keith said.
Nashville’s Mike Fisher scored his first goal of the series.
Detroit pulled Mrazek late for an extra attacker, then got a power play with 44 seconds left for a 6-on-4 advantage, but the Lightning defense held on.
Advertisement
With about 8 minutes left in Game 3 Monday, Bellemare hit Orlov from behind into the boards and was given a major penalty and game misconduct. Justin Abdelkader flipped the puck away from the Detroit defensive zone, and Nyquist surged onto it; Riley Sheahan supported the attack, allowing Nyquist to go unchecked at the back post. Tampa Bay has a 3-1 lead in this series.
