Edmonton, Alberta – Tampa Bay Lighting Stanley Cup can be less than 24 hours away.
With their captain Steven Stamkos out due to injury and trailing by two goals in the first round, Lighting rallied for a 5-4 overtime victory over the Dallas Stars on Friday night at Rogers Place.
Power defender Kevin Shattonkirk scored the game winner in the power play. Tampa Bay has now won three straight matches and could win the championship on Saturday night. This weekend’s back-to-back games are the first since 2009 in the Stanley Cup final and the second since the beginning of the expansion era in 1967.
In the extra frame, the teams traded power-play opportunities. The stars failed to capitalize when Mikhail Sargachev stopped to catch Tyler Seguin, but the power gained when Jamie Benn was given a whistle on a tripping call against Tyler Johnson.
The man took advantage of a minute and 24 seconds to connect when Shatenkirk blinked a shot over the right face-off point and beat Anton Khudobin just inside the far post.
All told, Lightning was 3-for-4 with the man advantage in the game, while the Stars went 0-for-3.
“I think there are a lot of guys who played some big plays tonight,” Sheitnick said. “A lot of times you see a guy who achieves a game-winning goal, but it took us a long time to get there. We keep it simple on the power play and good things happen.
“It was a great moment.”
At the end of the second round, the teams traded for goals again in third place. Kiloran gave Lighting a 4-3 lead, then Joe Powellski pulled the star despite a regular 8:25 when his shot passed past Andrey Vasilevsky from Steinkirk’s leg.
Corey Perry was whistled for interfering at Braden Point, who also received a minor for decoration, after the last 28.3 seconds were played on Rule 4-on-4. Shettonkirk then finished it in overtime.
“I was thinking that I deserved some kind of good deed for him,” said Shtenkirk. “I hate to do that to Wassi. When he saves first, he walks away from you. Credit to them – they were the ones who were helping us, just throwing us into the trap. ”
Point scored twice for Tampa Bay, while Yannie Gorde and Alex Kiloran scored once each. Powellsky had two goals for the Devils. John Klingberg and Perry also scored.
Vasilyevsky, who played every minute of the post-specialist for lighting, scored three goals in his first seven shots, but rallied for 26 saves. Khudobin stopped 35 of 30 for Dallas.
Looking to shake off more offense ahead of him, Dallas coach Rick Basses started the first round of switching with a line-changing mix.
Soon, both teams settled into a strict checking style, and Klingberg opened the scoring on the first shot of the Stars’ game, an impressive individual effort that came in the first round in seven minutes and 17 seconds.
Despite an 8-3 lead in the opening frame, the Stars extended their lead to 2-0 late when Ben showed Pavleski a pass, which beat Vasilevsky for the 11th goal of the playoffs.
That tied him to a postseason goal-scoring lead – 59 seconds.
Co-leaders, Point, Shettenkirk and Andrej Platt quickly took the puck to the ice, with 33 seconds left in their 12th round in the first round.
“Who knows what would happen if he didn’t score?” Said Kiloran. “He’s been scoring goals all over the playoffs. We depend on the big boys to achieve those goals and they have been coming. ”
Early in the second, on the power play, Point also tied their 13th pair 2-2 in a power outage.
The Stars later took the lead for the second time when Seguin beat Sargachev, cut the net and fed Buck back to the crease, where it bounced off Wasilevsky’s skate and kissed Perry’s stick.
The Stars then controlled a long period of play, but the teams went to a 3-3 draw in the second half. Gorde scored on a wrist shot from a high slot while Andrew C Cogliano was serving a late bowing minor.
Friday’s game marked the first time in the playoffs that Lighting had lagged behind after a period but came back to win. They would have been 0-4 in that position earlier.
The Tampa Bay Postseason is now 7-1 in extra time, including a one-shot win over the Washington Capitals during the Round Robin and five overtime wins from the Columbus Bali Jac Jackets to start the first round.
With one game out of his team and his time in the bubble coming to an end, Powellsky said the stars had not changed their minds.
“We thought it would be a long series.” “We just have to go and increase it.”
“We’ll bounce back,” Bonnes said. “I have full faith in our hockey club. I’m proud of the way I played tonight. We’ll play tomorrow like we played tonight. ”
Electricity coach John Cooper said his players were suddenly quiet in the dressing room after the game.
“Shetty walked into the room and they all got angry.” “When I go in, there are usually barricades, and no one was there. Guys, they’re here to do something. ”
“Like we said, we haven’t won anything yet. They really believe they know what it takes to win a series. We still have one more win and we are getting nothing. “
On the injury front, Stamcos did not make a brief but impressive appearance on Friday’s outfit. Cooper said on Friday morning that Stamkos may be able to get dressed sometime before the end of the series.
Dallas forward Blake Camus missed his second consecutive game due to injury and Radek Foxa missed his sixth. Another Dallas forward, Roop Hintz, did not return to the game after being hit hard on the boards during the second period.
