Pittsburgh Penguins coach Mike Sullivan’s decision to switch goalies, as important as it seems, may not have been as critical to the outcome of Game 6 as his decision to challenge an apparent Tampa Bay goal in the first period.
Advertisement
Now, the Lightning will have to win one more Game 7 on the road to keep their dreams of hoisting the Stanley Cup in mid-June alive. Kessel scored during a two-man advantage at 18:46 of the first period to give the Penguins a 1-0 lead. They came back in the third, but we battled through it. “So, if anything, just having an appreciation for how hard it is to get to this point and as a group we’ve been through a lot and want to make the most of this opportunity”.
Chris Kunitz restored the Penguins lead but a late strike from Kucherov in the third and final period made it 3-3, sending the game to overtime and handing Johnson his moment of glory.
Game 7 is Thursday night, with the Penguins hoping to reach the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2009 and the Lightning looking to advance to the Cup Final for the second straight year.
F Bryan Rust got a breakaway goal with 2:08 left to seal the Penguins win in Tampa Bay on Tuesday. The team that’s scored first is 5-1 and there’s only been a single lead change in 18-plus periods spread out over almost two weeks: Tyler Johnson’s deflection in overtime that gave Tampa Bay Game 5.
Western Conference finals Game 6: Blues at Sharks, 9 p.m. ET, NBCSN (SJ leads 3-2) – Blues coach Ken Hitchcock declared Tuesday that he’ll turn back to Brian Elliott, who got them this far, as starting goalie after Jake Allen surrendered four games in Game 5. If you listen to Malkin, which we know many of us here in the Bolts Nation do not, he has proclaimed his certainty the Penguins will return home to the Consol Energy Center with their heads held high and an opportunity to defeat the Lightning in Game 7. “If they get the first goal, it lights up the building, and moment gets hard”, said Sullivan. They’ve given up five goals in the last 90 seconds of a period.
Sullivan had inserted Marc-Andre Fleury into the lineup for Game 5 Sunday in Pittsburgh.
Phil Kessel and Sidney Crosby scored goals for the Pittsburgh Penguins on Tuesday night. Now the Lightning had scored the first goal. This game has everything on the line the National Hockey League eastern conference and a trip to the cup finals, so both teams will be pulling out all the stops in game 7. They talked a big game before delivering a big game. Their reward? Game 7 at home, something that has been nothing short of torturous for the flightless birds for many years.
The Lightning appeared to take a 1-0 lead in Game 6, but the Pens challenged and the goal was called back when the review showed that Jonathan Drouin was just barely offside. Forget that he hasn’t been on the winning side of a post-series handshake line this deep into the playoffs since his glorious night in Detroit seven years ago, which ended with him hoisting the Penguins’ third Stanley Cup. Ultimately, the Lightning would prevail, and put the Penguins on the brink of elimination with a 4-3 overtime victory.
Advertisement
On the eve of his 22nd birthday, Matt Murray helped make an honest man of Evgeni Malkin.
