Marc-Andre Fleury, long the Penguins’ franchise goalie, got his first game action since March 31 during the third period of their 4-3 loss to Tampa Bay at Amalie Arena, stopping all seven shots he faced.
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Tampa Bay Lightning’s Ryan Callahan (24) scores a goal past Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Matt Murray, right, during the first period of Game 4 of the NHL hockey Stanley Cup Eastern Conference finals Friday, May 20, 2016, in Tamp…
The Lightning now lead the series 3-2 and have a chance to close out the Penguins in Game 6 on Tuesday night in Tampa Bay. Daley will miss the rest of the playoffs with a broken left ankle that occurred in Game 4.
Tampa Bay trailed most of the night.
“We’ve got to play better”, he said.
“The one thing on the bench was, it doesn’t matter how you get there”, Cooper said after the Penguins scored three times in 12 minutes to turn a potential rout into a nail-biter.
Vasilevskiy had a 4-0 lead entering the third period, but the Penguins didn’t give up. I mean, when you wake up in the morning it’s not about how they came back it’s about winning the game. “Ultimately, the series is 2-2”.
“I told these guys at the start of the playoffs that we’re going to need everybody”, Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said. They returned home and were trounced 7-3 in Game 6.
Tampa Bay deserves a ton of credit because it is an outstanding team that is as opportunistic as any team in the league. Pittsburgh added a goal from Evgeni Malkin – his fourth of the playoffs – to pull within 4-2 with 8:47 remaining.
Goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy took a shutout into the third before things got interesting.
All of the talk leading into Game 4 was geared towards the Penguins getting a fast start, scoring first and keeping the Lightning from trapping them.
The Lightning were outshot 89-49 in the previous two games, a disparity that Cooper called “unacceptable” after the Penguins took a 2-1 series lead.
But the experience of the highs of lows of last year’s playoff run to the Stanley Cup final has served the defending conference champions well over the past month.
As has been the case throughout this series, the game started off quickly, with power forward Ryan Callahan charging in on a breakaway against Marc-Andre Fleury. Fellow blueliner Andrej Sustr scored his first goal of the postseason when he jumped into the play and drove home a backdoor goal.
Johnson, who took a puck to the face in warmups when a shot caromed off the post, played through the injury – at first, he wore a full cage to protect his face, switching to a clear shield over his face midway through the first period. Teammates Jonathan Drouin (power play) and Tyler Johnson also scored.
To begin the third period, Fleury led his team out onto the ice.
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“The capacity crowd of 18,648 still was digesting Killorn”s goal when Kucherov received a cross-ice feed from Vladislav Namestnikov and scored from inside the left circle. “We think we have quality people, but it’s an imperfect situation”, Sullivan said before the team flew south to Florida on Monday. He made seven saves during his time playing. Injured Lightning captain Steven Stamkos continues to practice, however there’s still no definitive timetable for a possible return from surgery for a blood clot discovered near his right collarbone. “It might be a story for people, but for inside the locker room and for us as coaches, it is kind of an easy decision in the fact that, you know, it’s probably easier for us than it is for other people because we’ve just trusted both guys so much”, Hitchcock said. “When we go out, and we execute, we play with determination, we believe we can beat anybody”.
