LIGHTNING 3, RED WINGS 2: Ondrej Palat scored with 2:59 left in the third period, lifting Tampa Bay over Detroit for a 3-1 lead in the first-round series.
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Unfortunately, for much of the game, Tampa Bay Lightning fans would find themselves screaming at the ice and pulling out their hair as a series of miscues would render the Lightning scoreless in the first two periods of play.
The native of Sverdlovsk, Russia, has played in 953 career National Hockey League regular-season games, all with Detroit, and has accumulated 314 goals and 604 assists for 918 points. “I don’t think we played our best, but (Bishop) kept us in the whole way”.
But the Red Wings nonetheless tied it 2-2 by the end of the second period on tap-in goals by Darren Helm and Gustav Nyquist, the latter with just 8.4 seconds remaining. The best chance came from Datsyuk, who had a backhand go off the near post.
Go to the net and hope something good happens.
Said coach Jon Cooper: “If you give our team a C (for its Game 5 performance) and you give Detroit an A, the problem is Bishop got an A-plus, and an A-plus trumped the A. And that’s why we got lucky on that one”.
And this was a game where the Lightning leaned heavily on the play of Bishop.
Jaden Schwartz scored a tiebreaking power-play goal in the third period for the second straight game as St. Louis moved to the brink of its first appearance in the Western Conference semifinals since 2012. After the trade deadline came and went without a deal, Drouin finally relented and went to the AHL, where he scored nine goals in 10 games after rejoining the Syracuse Crunch.
“We made a decision to put the puck in the hands of the guys who know what to do with it and challenge them”, Cooper told the team’s official website.
NY and Florida are now tied at two games apiece in their first round series.
The Red Wings allowed just 16 shots on goal in Game 3, stayed out of the penalty box and were strong on the penalty kill when they did get whistled.
According to oddsmakers at Bovada.lv, Tampa Bay is a clear favorite on the road, as the Lightning are getting odds of -160 to win, while the Red Wings are getting a money line of +145 to win.
It was the 129 game that Bishop has won in net for the Bolts. Both Detroit goals in the second were something-out-of-nothing moments, and they evened the game out for the final stanza. Earlier Thursday, the Red Wings assigned D Xavier Ouellet to the Grand Rapids Griffins of the AHL, which begins a first-round playoff series against the Milwaukee Admirals on Friday night.
“I’m not thinking about two days or how many days”, Datsyuk said. “It didn’t, though, ” Lightning defenseman Braydon Coburn said after the game.”We had lots of chances today to finish it earlier, we just couldn’t score”, he said.
With Alexey Marchenko more than likely out for Game 5, the Wings recalled Xavier Ouellet from Grand Rapids.
What makes this even more frustrating is that the Lightning are without Steven Stamkos and that the Red Wings are for the most part healthy.
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Penguins coach Mike Sullivan was coy about his choice for a Game 3 starter, though he praised Zatkoff for “being great for us”.
