The Tampa Bay Lightning were three-minutes-and-forty-seven seconds from leaving South Florida with two wins and a tied series. Instead, the Florida Panthers scored twice in eleven seconds to take the lead, and added an empty-net goal to pick up a 4-2 win, and a dominating 3-1 lead in the series.
Andrei Vasilevskiy kept the Lightning in the game with 14 saves on 15 shots through the first two periods before finishing the night with 19 stops on 2 shots. His play allowed the Lightning to take a 2-1 lead as Mitchell Chaffee and Erik Cernak scored eleven seconds apart following a questionable hit from Aaron Ekblad that knocked Brandon Hagel out of the game.
The first period was a grind. That is really the only way to describe it. Despite both teams having a power play opportunity they only had 30 shot attempts combined, 13 scoring chances, and 3 high-danger chances, all credited to Florida. The home squad had the early advantage, at least territoraly, as they revved up the forecheck early. While they kept the puck in the Lightning zone, Tampa Bay did a decent job of keeping them from generating any solid chances.
Both teams were battling along the boards for much of the period, with little open space to get any momentum going. The Lightning’s best shift came from the Anthony Cirelli line as they picked off a few breakout passes, and kept Florida on their heels. The only problem was that they really didn’t generate any shots of their own. Nikita Kucherov drew a penalty, but the Lightning continued their Sahara-like drought. They did have some zone time, which is a step in the right direction, but couldn’t string together enough passes to generate a solid chance.
The same could be said for the Florida advantage, which came a few moments later. With Cirelli and Brandon Hagel reunited, the Panthers struggled to establish any threats of their own.
Overall, the best chances came from distance. Emil Lilleberg had a nice shot through a screen that Sergei Bobrovsky saw and snared. Florida’s best chance came off the stick of Sam Bennett as he tipped a shot from the slot that Vasilevskiy swallowed up fairly easily.
If the two teams battled to a draw in the first period, it was almost all Florida for most of the second period. Energized by an early power play that didn’t result in a goal, their forecheck really got going. The Lightning didn’t have room to breathe anywhere on the ice, and were slowly getting pushed back and pinned in. Thanks in part to Vasilevskiy, and a dedication to keeping their defensive shape they held the Panthers at bay for the first half of the period.
Unfortunately, the Panthers don’t need a lot room or time to put the puck into the net. A rather innoculas play started things. Florida missed a breakout pass, but Brad Marchand was the first to puck in the Lightning zone. The Lightning overloaded the zone as all five players were on one side of the ice. Marchand was able to slip the pass to an unmarked Anton Lundell in front of the net. Lundell wasted no time and fired the puck past Vasilevskiy to open the scoring.
Anton Lundell (Brad Marchand, Eetu Luostarinen) 1-0 Panthers
The building was buzzing, but the Lightning had a good shift after the goal. A few minutes later, the long-simmering tension ratcheted up a notch as Aaron Ekblad cruised in along the boards and delivered a forearm to Brandon Hagel’s head phenomenal enough that A.J Styles would be proud. Unfortunately, the only two people in the building that didn’t see it were the two referees on the ice.
To say Coach Jon Cooper was livid when it became apparent there would be no call would be an understatement. We’re not lip-readers, but he definitely unleashed a torrent of words that would get him banned in the comment section here. For a normally calm and collected coach, he was even more animated when the Lightning responded the way they needed to, by putting the puck in the net.
We’ve been begging the Bolts to get more shots in Bobrovsky’s direction, and this was a case as to why. Nick Perbix flung a shot from the point that hit Emil Lilleberg in front of the net. The puck dropped down to the ice and Mitchell Chaffee was there to swat the rebound into the net. Just like that, tied ballgame.
Mitchell Chaffee (Emil Lilleberg, Nick Perbix) 1-1
That quieted the crowd, which had hit the raucous level just a few minutes later. Eleven seconds later, Erik Cernak (!) silenced them as he fired a shot through a screen that beat Bobrovsky. It marked the fastest two goals in Lightning playoff history.
Erik Cernak (Jake Guentzel) 2-1 Lightning
The Lightning bench was pumped with the normally reserved Coach Cooper double-pumping his first following the goals. Florida seemed a little stunned with the turn of events, but got back to their forecheck over the last two minutes and the Lightning had to survive a late flurry.
It set the stage for an intense third period.
Florida did nothing to lessen the animosity between the two teams as Niko Mikkola boarded Zemgus Girgensons just 19 seconds into the period. Not only was the Panthers’ defenseman dinged for a five-minute major, he was assessed a game misconduct. Florida would be down a defenseman for the rest of the game.
The Lightning had a prime opportunity to do what that they did in Game 3, and increase their one-goal lead to a two-goal lead. Unfortunately, as the seconds, and then minutes, ticked away with the extra skater, it became obvious that they wouldn’t take advantage of the situation. Not until the final seconds of the power play were ticking away did they finally generate a couple of shots in the vague direction of Bobrovsky.
To add to their woes, Brayden Point took a high-sticking penalty just as the major was about to expire. Florida was on the advantage, and it looked like they would make the Lightning pay as Aaron Ekblad beat Vasilevskiy on a back-door play to tie the game. Before the crowd’s cheers could die down, the Lightning challenged, and unlike in Game 1, they were quickly rewarded as a brief replay showed that the Panthers had entered the zone off-side.
The goal was washed away, and now the countdown began. For the next 12 minutes or so, the Lightning frustrated the Panthers, limiting them to just one shot. Tampa Bay was spending a little more time in the Florida zone, but couldn’t get much on net. A sneak shot from the boards through a screen from Girgensons was their best opportunity, but Bobrovsky snagged it out of the air.
Just as eyes started to glance back at the Florida net to see if Bobrovsky would vacate it, the game, and possibly the series took a turn. Jake Guentzel, who has arguably been the Lightning’s best forward in the series, had a chance to clear the puck, and went with the safe play of banging it off of the boards and out. Ekblad read the play, and dropped down like a catcher to keep the puck in the zone.
He dropped the pass off to Sam Reinhart and went to the net. No Lightning player followed him, so Ekblad was all alone to put a rebound past Vasilevskiy after Reinhart threaded a shot through traffic.
Aaron Ekblad (Sam Reinhart) 2-2
The Bolts were stunned, they would be deflated one shift later. Eleven seconds after the Ekblad goal, Seth Jones floated a shot on net that appeared to hit Ryan McDonagh, and then the inside of Vasilevskiy’s arm before spinning like a top across the goal line.
Seth Jones (Brad Marchand, Anton Lundell) 3-2 Panthers
There were still three-and-a-half minutes left in the period, but it felt like there could be fifteen minutes and the Lightning wouldn’t have scored. The scoreboard reversal came so fast it just seemed to suck the life out of them. Carter Verhaeghe added an empty-net goal to officially finish things off.
The series heads back to Tampa for Game 5 with the Lightning wondering how different things could have been if they had been able to pull just one power play goal out on the night. The team will bring everything they have on Wednesday, but they will have to find away to execute when they have the advantage if they want to prolong their season.
