Buoyed by the return of Mikhail Sergachev and powered by two goals from their captain, the Tampa Bay Lightning staved off elimination with a 6-3 victory over the Florida Panthers in Game 4. Sergachev, in his first game since February 7th, had an assist and a hit in 17:03 of ice time. Along with Stamkos, Brandon Hagel had two goals, while Nick Paul and Brayden Point also found the back of the net. Victor Hedman and Nikita Kucherov each had 3 assists while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 22 of 25 shots
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Getting emotionally involved in games early has been an underlying issue to the Lightning’s inconsistency this season, but they were charged up from the start. Sergachev was welcomed back with a deafening roar from the crowd, who stayed engaged from throughout a first period that was almost all Tampa Bay Lightning.
As opposed to the other three games in the series, the Lightning didn’t wait around to get shots on net as Mikey Eyssimont launched the first shot on Sergey Bobrovsky just 15 seconds into the game. Not only did they shot early, they shot often, recording 29 shot attempts in the first 20 minutes. Florida blocked 7 of them, but of the remaining 22, 14 found their way on net. Even more important, they found their way into the net.
It was The Captain who got them on the board first. An early power play didn’t yield any results as Florida continued their stiff defense against the Lightning’s special teams. The second chance for the home team, showed sparks of the dominant power play we’ve seen for most of the season. The Bolts were confident and quick with the puck and it eventually ended up on Stamkos’ stick after Point made a nice pass from in front of the net. Stamkos’ lashed it into the net for his fourth goal in four games.
Steven Stamkos (4) [Brayden Point (2), Brandon Hagel (1)] Power Play, 1-0 Tampa Bay
The Panthers had their chance with a few minutes later as Tyler Motte was whistled for interference. Not only did they not tie it up, they coughed up another goal as Brandon Hagel scooted into their zone and wristed one up and over Bobrovsky for a big goal.
Brandon Hagel (2) [Victor Hedman (4)] Shorthanded. 2-0 Tampa Bay
Still, it’s the Panthers, a relentless offensive machine that you can only hold at bay for so long. Two goals was never going to be enough, even with Andrei Vasilevskiy on the top of his game early. Leave it to Brayden Point to provide a key insurance goal. He was flying around the ice all night long and it was off of a patented hair-on-fire entry into the zone that he scored as the teams were skating four-on-four. One-on-one with Bobrovsky, he dipped his shoulder a bit and fooled the goaltender into thinking his shot was going on the short side. It wasn’t. Point whipped behind the net and tucked it into the far post. There would be no miracle save on this night from Officer Bob.
Brayden Point (2) [Nikita Kucherov (4), Victor Hedman (2)] 3-0 Tampa Bay
It was the best 20 minutes of the series for the Lightning as they outchanced the Panthers 15-7, and more importantly, held them to just 5 shots on goal. The brief times the Lightning have troubled the Panthers prior to tonight, Florida has found a way to adjust their game to regain the upper hand, and with an intermission to think about their first period play, there was no doubt they would come out strong in the second.
Sure enough, they controlled play for most of the period, flipping the shot total to 15-8 in their favor as well as racking up 6 high-danger chances. After Vasilevskiy made several key stops in the first few minutes, old friend Carter Verhaeghe was able to make them pay for failing to clear the puck. He tucked a short-side shot under the bar off of a behind-the-net feed from Matthew Tkachuk to cut the Lightning lead to 3-1.
Carter Verhaeghe (3) [Matthew Tkachuk (3), Anton Lundell (3)] 3-1 Tampa Bay
Perhaps the biggest goal of the night came just five minutes later. With the teams at four-on-four yet again, Sergachev had a little room to glide into the offensive zone and he fed Hagel just inside the blue line. Hagel skated to a prime shooting spot and ripped a wrister past Bobrovskiy for his first multi-goal game of his postseason career.
Brandon Hagel (3) [Mikhail Sergachev (1), Anthony Cirelli (2)] 4-1 Tampa Bay
That goal would prove large indeed. The Comeback Cats controlled the rest of the period and scored twice within three minutes to make things a bit nerve-wracking for the Lightning faithful. First it was Sam Reinhart who had an extra whack at the puck during a goal-mouth scramble.
Sam Reinhart (3) [Brandon Montour (2), Matthew Tkachuk (4)] 4-2 Tampa Bay
Then Oliver Ekman-Larsson joined the rush after Brandon Hagel was taken out in the offensive zone. Rather than pass, the veteran let one go that beat Vasilevskiy a little too cleanly.
Oliver Ekman-Larsson (1) [Evan Rodrigues (1), Eetu Luostarinen (1)] 4-3 Tampa Bay
Back on their heels a bit, the Lightning did finish off the period fairly strongly with two quality shots on net in the final minutes of play.
The third period would feature the desperation of the Lightning not to get swept on home ice against the desire of the Panthers to finish this series off. For the first five minutes it was all in Florida’s favor as Vasilevskiy had to make three saves and the post made a huge one on Reinhart’s shot through a screen.
After that initial rush, the Lightning took over and drove the majority of the play during the next ten-minute stretch. A run of play that ended with The Captain scoring his second of the game. Nikita Kucherov caused a turnover in the Lightning zone and then shielded the puck in the Florida zone before setting Stamkos up for his fifth goal of the series.
Steven Stamkos (5) [Nikita Kucherov (5), Brayden Point (3)] 5-3 Tampa Bay
The scoring wrapped up with the Bolts converting a five-on-three power play. Anthony Duclair was tripped at center ice as he steamed towards a breakaway and then Brandon Montour took an unnecessarily cross-check on Kucherov, who was already on the ice.
With the two-skater advantage, the Panthers had to choose who to cover, and they chose poorly, leaving Nick Paul all alone in front of Bobrovsky, who finished with 26 saves on 32 shots.
Nick Paul (1) [Nikita Kucherov (6), Victor Hedman (6)] Power Play, 6-3 Tampa Bay
For the first time in franchise history, the Lightning won a game in a series in which they were down 3-0. They took the first step up the mountain, now they have to keep climbing. The building is going to be rocking in Sunrise on Monday, and the Panthers are going to come out with a lot of pressure. In order, to keep this thing going, the Bolts are going to have to take advantage of the aggressive play and put the puck in the net.
