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The Tampa Bay Lightning have a stranglehold on their first-round series with the Detroit Red Wings.
In a pivotal Game 4 showdown at the Joe Louis Arena on Tuesday night, where the Bolts would head back to Amalie Arena tied at two wins apiece with the Wings or up three games to one, it would be a late-game power-play strike from
Ondrej Palat on Detroit goalie Petr Mrazek, scored with just 2:59 left in the third period, that ensured the latter would be the case in a 3-2 victory for Tampa Bay.
The Lightning, who came out with a barrel of energy and two great chances on the opening shift, opened up the game’s scoring behind a power-play goal from
Nikita Kucherov, scored just nine seconds into the power play, and just 5:41 into the first period. It was the quick start the Bolts needed in a first period in which they outshot the Wings 14-to-10, and took that 1-0 lead into the room.
Tampa Bay extended that edge to 2-0 with another power-play marker from Kucherov, off a great passing sequence between No. 86 and
Jonathan Drouin (along with Jason Garrison).
In desperation mode, the Wings countered with
Darren Helm’s first goal of the series, shoveled in through Tampa’s
Ben Bishop on a rebound off a
Luke Glendening shot.
It wasn’t the ugliest play of the middle stanza.
With just seconds left in the period, the Wings’ one-two of
Riley Sheahan and
Gustav Nyquist came in and successfully took four Lightning skaters on, while Nyquist struck for his first of the playoffs (and just his second in the last 20 postseason games), scored with just seconds left.
Tied at two, and with the Wings look to tie the series at two, the Red Wings and Lightning traded jab for jab throughout the third, and each team had a chance to come through with a power-play dagger.
But the Bolts, like they have all series long, killed the Wing man advantage (though they had a scare on a near-goal from Detroit stud rookie Dylan Larkin) and almost immediately generated one of their own, as Red Wings defenseman Jonathan Ericsson was whistled for a crosscheck on Palat.
And it would be Palat that capitalized on a dish from Drouin, and snapped home his first of the playoffs.
Bishop stopped 26-of-28, including all five of Detroit’s power-play shots, in the victory.
Random thoughts and notes
- The power play has found some, well, power.
The Tampa Bay power play, which has been a revolving door of disaster all year long, entered last night’s just 1-for-14 through the first three games of the playoffs. That was in line with a regular-season man advantage that finished 28th in the NHL this season at 15.8% (only the very bad Winnipeg Jets and even worse Toronto Maple Leafs had worse power play percentages). But on Tuesday night,
all three of the Lightning goals came on the power play, which finished the night 3-for-5.
And it really was the passing combo of Drouin and Kucherov -- often with help from the defenseman playing the point -- that made the Tampa Bay power play borderline impossible to defend for Detroit.
Drouin’s passing game, by now, is back to where everyone expected it to be, and his deceptiveness with the puck is back, which has put teams on notice when it comes to both his passing and shooting game. That, along with the natural space that comes with a 5-on-4, has opened doors for Kucherov.
And if there’s one thing everyone in Tampa has learned, it’s that Kucherov doesn’t miss. Not this time of year, anyways. With two goals and three points in the win, Kucherov’s postseason resume now reads five goals and eight points in four games this year, and 16 goals and 31 points in 32 games overall.
Pst, they’re going to need to re-sign this guy, too.
- With little to no impact from Erik Condra, in for the injured J.T. Brown, in Game 3, the Lightning went back to the 11-forward, 7-defensemen look they often did through the regular season and dressed
Matt Taormina for his first career postseason contest. Taormina played about as much as you’d expect and finished the night with one shot on goal in just 2:39, but it’ll be interesting to see if/when Jon Cooper plugs
Jonathan Marchessault back into the mix as a depth forward. At a certain point, you’ll need complementary scoring, and while the Wings might be able to survive this series on the back of Kucherov and Tyler Johnson, a series against either Florida or the Islanders would come with a definite need for some extra scoring. And though Marchessault in a bottom-six role is something Cooper seems hesitant to commit to, it’d make sense to get his feet wet somewhere along the road.
- This Tampa Bay win finally bucked the trend of home ice holding serve in both the regular-season series and postseason series between the Bolts and Wings. Now the Bolts hope that returns to normalcy for their Game 5 showdown back in Tampa.
Up next
The Lightning will have a chance to eliminate the Wings at Amalie on Thursday night. Cooper’s group had a little bit of a tough time a postseason ago when it came to burying teams before it became must-win territory, so their approach and start to this tilt will undoubtedly be something to watch.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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