Ondrej Palat banged home a rebound at 4:40 of overtime Tuesday night, lifting the Tampa Bay Lightning to a 4-3 win over the Boston Bruins in game two of an Eastern Conference second round playoff series at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The best of seven is now even 1-1.
Boston struck first in the opening period on a two on one breakout when Nick Ritchie sent one over to Anders Bjork in the right circle. Bjork missed the net, but the caram came off the end boards to the right of the goaltender where netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy couldn’t carral it and Ritchie stayed on it and poked it across the line at 3:14 to make it 1-0. The Lightning thought they had tied it when they got a tip in goal at 4:45, but after a Bruins challenge and a review it was revealed Brayden Point was offside nullifying the equalizer. Tampa did tie it however when Blake Coleman knocked one home from the slot after a beautiful feed from Zach Bogosian at 12:42.
Boston would retake the lead on the powerplay at 14:33 of the second. David Pastrnak at the left point would find an open Brad Marchand standing next to the goal to the left of Vasilevskiy, and Marchand would re-direct the perfect tape to tape pass into the net for a 2-1 lead. It only took Tampa 55 seconds to tie it up again as Nikita Kucherov re-directed a Kevin Shattenkirk shot at 15:28. The teams would again head to the locker room with the score still tied, and the Lightning holding a 23-16 lead in shots on goal.
Both teams had some good chances in the first half of the third period. Coleman was stopped in deep on Bruins goalie Jaroslav Halak after a good pass, and Matt Grzelcyk had a great Boston chance when he fired one wide glove side on Vasilevskiy off a faceoff that just missed. Coleman did redeem himself though with his second of the night taking a Victor Hedman pass and breaking in alone on Halak, and fired one from the slot that went five hole on the goalie and just crept across the goal line at 10:40. Marchand would also get his second of the night with just under four minutes left to play to equalize. After some pressure in the Tampa zone, Pastrnak would steal an attempted clear and get it to Sean Kuraly who would send a perfect cross crease pass to Marchand, again standing to the left of the goalie as he finished into the half empty cage at 16:02 to make it 3-3. The Lightning had most of the pressure over the final 3:58 of regulation to try to find the game winner, but nothing would come of it and game two would head to overtime.
The game winner from Palat in the extra session came after Halak couldn’t glove a shot in on goal. Pat Maroon collected the loose puck behind the net and made a power move to the right of Halak that was turned away, but the rebound came right to Palat who pounced on it and put it in to even the series.
Halak made 36 saves in the loss, while Marchand had the two goals and Pastrnak had two assists. Coleman led Tampa with his two goals, while Vasilevskiy had 22 saves. The Bruins went 1-3 on the powerplay, while the Lightning were 0-2. Game three is Wednesday night at 8 p.m.
