7
0
Vasilevskiy and the Lightning let Florida off the hook.
FLA-6
TB-5 (OT)
Tampa Bay Leads the Series 2-1
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed six goals on 47 shots for the loss. He was dreadful tonight. The tying goal in the Third Period is simply not a goal a NHL goaltender should allow on an unscreened shot from the center point going straight through the five hole. I don’t even think the Lightning played that poorly sitting on the lead, but the netminding has to be better.
First Period
4:31 FLA Bennett (1), (Huberdeau, Tippett)
7:05 FLA Gudas (1), (Forsling, Huberdeau)
Second Period
1:57 TB Cirelli (1), (Hedman, Killorn)
5:46 TB Colton (1), (Coleman)
8:38 TB Stamkos (2), (McDonagh)
12:34 FLA Wennberg (1), (Weegar, Tippett)(PP)
14:17 TB Point (3), (Kucherov, Hedman)(PP)
18:17 TB Killorn (1), (Hedman, Point)(PP)
Third Period
1:45 FLA Hornqvist (1), (Huberdeau, Barkov)(PP)
16:53 FLA FLA Forsling (1), (Wennberg, Hornqvist)
Overtime
5:56 FLA Lomberg (1), (Vatrano, Gudas)
You can’t get by in the playoffs playing only one period of strong hockey. And I’m not saying the Lightning were as bad as the 2-0 deficit indicated in the First Period and I understand there were score effects in the Third Period, but we have yet to see the Lightning really string more than 20 minutes of Lightning hockey together at any point in this series. Mind you, they tried to essentially do what they did in Game Two tonight in the Third Period of Game Three, but it takes passable goaltending to park the bus like that and the Lightning just didn’t get it. The expected goal chart tells the tale of a Lightning team that shut it down once they got the fifth goal and couldn’t crank it back up again once they coughed up the lead. Now there’s actually some real pressure on them for Game Four because, frankly, they’re playing around with ’03 Washington Capitals versus the Lightning type mojo where Tampa Bay fell behind 0-2 at home and came screaming back to win the series. Things can turn that abruptly in the playoffs if your head isn’t in the game and/or you don’t get the goaltending.
Ross Colton had a goal and was +1 with 3 shots and 2 hits in 14:37.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
