Lightning win in OT, lead Eastern finals 3-2
In one of the most thrilling games of a wildly entertaining Eastern Conference finals, the Tampa Bay Lightning earned an incredible 4-3 victory in overtime to push the Pittsburgh Penguins to the brink of elimination. The Tampa Bay Lightning are also now one victory away from returning to the Stanley Cup Final for the second successive year.
The Lightning scored 53 seconds into overtime when Jason Garrison ‘s shot deflected off Tyler Johnson ‘s behind and past Pittsburgh Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury to complete a comeback victory.
The loss for the Penguins comes with a lot of questions, none bigger than those regarding coach Mike Sullivan’s decision to start Fleury over Matt Murray, who had mostly strong performances in net to this point in the postseason. With the series on the line, will he go back to Murray in a pressure situation he has never faced?
There are so many things to get to about this game, so let’s get to our takeaways:
1. The Lightning did something no other team had against the Penguins this season: Coming into Sunday night’s game, the Penguins had won all 46 games in which they held the lead going into the third period in 2015-16. There was not one loss in regulation or overtime through the regular season or playoffs. 46-0-0. Perfect.
When Chris Kunitz scored the go-ahead goal for the Penguins with less than a minute to play in the second period, it seemed so huge. Pittsburgh never loses with the lead in the third. Right? Wrong.
Nikita Kucherov ‘s stunning wraparound goal (see No. 4) with just over three minutes to play in regulation put the game back in doubt. Then the Lightning needed only 53 seconds in overtime to end the Penguins’ incredible streak of success having had the lead going into the final 20 minutes.
Here’s a look at Tyler Johnson ‘s unique OT winner:
But that’s not all. The Penguins also hadn’t lost back-to-back games since Jan. 15. They’ve been the most consistent and hottest team in hockey duringover the second half of the season that lapses have been corrected so quick that they’ve become nearly impossible to beat in two straight. Even though they’d already won twice, this is the win where it feels like the Lightning made the Penguins bleed a little.
2. Marc-Andre Fleury looked like a goalie who hadn’t played in a while: To hang this loss solely on Fleury would be a mistake and unfair. The Penguins certainly could have done more to help him and the absence of the injured Trevor Daley was felt on the blue line Sunday night. That said, the decision Mike Sullivan made to put Fleury into the series after not having had a single start since March 29 puts the goalie in the spotlight.
Fleury made 21 saves on 25 shots. Beyond a few stops here and there (like his stunning pad save in the second on Johnson), Fleury didn’t have the look of a goalie that was fully in control. Alex Killorn ‘s goal in the second period that helped start the Lightning’s rally was not a great one to give up as Fleury had often left the short-side top corner open on shots coming from his blocker side. Killorn snuck his shot from a tougher angle right into that opening.
In overtime, Fleury may not have even stopped Garrison’s initial shot because of how deep he was in his net. The shot could have also gone wide, but instead made contact with Johnson and went in.
Again, this loss is not on Fleury. You have to give him credit for the years he’s been there, the Stanley Cup he won and the season he had before getting injured. But based on how Murray was playing, even after he had a rough go in Game 4, Sullivan was taking a gamble with the veteran. It didn’t pay off.
3. Victor Hedman made the play of the game that could get forgotten: Because of how early it happened and given the result, this play is probably going to go without much mention in the postgame chatter about Game 5. But bailed out goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy when the Penguins could have made it a 3-0 game in the second period.
On this play, Phil Kessel takes a shot that Vasilveskiy stops, but the puck trickles behind him. Patric Hornqvist was right at the side of the net. Before Hornqvist could get a stick on it, Hedman shoves his own stick along the goal line and shoves the puck away.
That’s inches from being 3-0. That’s a big hole to dig out of, especially against a team like Pittsburgh whose leads seem even bigger late in games. That right there very well could have been the Game 5-saving or maybe even the series-saving play for the Lightning.
4. Nikita Kucherov joined a very small group Sunday: When Nikita Kucherov scored on a one-time bullet into a yawning net to make it 2-2 in the second period, he pushed his postseason total to 10 goals. That matches his total from last season, but here’s what makes it so impressive.
The 22-year-old winger became just the third player in NHL history to score 10 or more goals in multiple postseasons before his 23rd birthday. The only other two to match this feat were Jeremy Roenick and Evgeni Malkin (via NHL PR). Here’s that goal:
Then Kucherov added his 11th goal of the postseason on that stunning wraparound to tie the game to extend his goal-scoring lead in these Stanley Cup Playoffs. This was just an impressive display of speed and finish, as well as getting the right bounce at the right time.
While scoring a lot of goals is great on its own, the fact that Kucherov scores so many big goals makes his accomplishments stand out. Both goals he scored in Game 5 were absolutely huge.
5. Andrei Vasilveskiy had another 30-plus save night: In the absence of Ben Bishop, Andrei Vasilevskiy continues to shine. The 21-year-old netminder made 31 saves in Game 5 to earn his third victory in four appearances this series. With the exception of his first appearance of the series, when he came on in relief of the injured Bishop, Vasilevskiy has seen no less than 34 shots (which was the total from Sunday night.) The kid has let in at least three goals in each of his four starts, too, but he’s still giving the Lightning a chance every time he steps in.
6. Pittsburgh did a lot well early in the game: The Penguins had a pretty strong start to the game overall. They closed out the first period in dramatic fashion with Brian Dumoulin beating the buzzer with his first goal of the entire season to give Pittsburgh the 1-0 lead. Bryan Rust made an incredible effort on the play to create the opportunity for Dumoulin.
Then the Pens poured it on a bit in the second period. They added another goal 1:30 into the second frame and started to seem like they were in control. However, a lapse of only 1:10 in the middle of the period was enough for the Lightning to score twice to tie the game.
That was all before Kunitz scored the late-period goal to give the Penguins the lead and seemingly put them in the driver’s seat to skate out of Game 5 with a victory. Things went another way, however.
Pittsburgh played well enough to win the game and will be scratching their heads as they wonder how they let this one slip away after having been unstoppable with a third-period lead.
7. Penguins’ goaltending decision for Game 6 hasn’t been made yet: After Game 5, Mike Sullivan would not commit to a starting goalie for their upcoming elimination game Tuesday night. It would seem that the easy decision would be to start Murray after Fleury’s stumble Sunday. However, the 21-year-old rookie has never played in an elimination game in the NHL. This is the trouble with Sullivan’s decision to start Fleury on Sunday.
Murray had been pretty much rolling. He did give up the four goals in Game 4, but it wouldn’t be right to say that all four goals were solely on him. Now he has been taken out of his rhythm and had the net taken away from him when he had been a big reason Pittsburgh got to this point. Now, if they go back to him, he would not be merely going into a game, he would be holding the Penguins’ season in his glove hand.
Fleury, however, has been in elimination games before. He has got a boatload of experience in pressure games. That said, his playoff numbers are not great and after the performance he had Sunday, it’s not going to be easy to go right back to him with the Penguins’ season on the line.
Sullivan is really going to have to choose carefully here. He can’t afford to be wrong again.
