The energy around Amalie Arena could be felt. All day there was a strong sense of anticipation with Tampa Bay hosting Pittsburgh in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference finals.

The Prince of Wales trophy was in the building and the Lightning had the chance to be awarded the hardware as Eastern Conference champions for the second consecutive season.

Instead of feeding off all that energy, Tampa Bay had it all sapped out with a poor performance before eventually falling to the Penguins 5-2 to send the series back to Consol Energy Center for a decisive Game 7 on Thursday.

Heading in to the game Tampa Bay talked at length about how they had learned their lessons from last season when they were in the same situation, heading home for Game 6 with a series lead and the chance to clinch a Final berth in front of their fans.

Last season, Tampa Bay was blown out by the New York Rangers 7-3 to send the series back to Madison Square Garden. The Lightning were looking not to get caught up in the moments and the emotions of that anticipation as happened last year.

Didn't happen.

Instead through two periods on Tuesday, Tampa Bay was credited with more giveaways (13) than shots on goal (11) and trailed by three goals. Having a goal overturned on a challenge by Pittsburgh five minutes in to the game - which brought the building to life - took some of the life out of Tampa Bay and they never seemed to recover.

"I think it was a huge moment in the game,'' Pittsburgh head coach Mike Sullivan said. "It was close enough that we certainly wanted to challenge it. It was certainly a big part of the game. If they get the first goal, it lights up the building, and all of a sudden, momentum gets difficult. So I thought it was a great call by (video coach Andy Saucier), and certainly, I think, our team actually got a boost from it because we knew we had dodged a bullet there.''

And it took the life out of the Lightning, who looked slow and out of sync reminiscent of Game 3 when Pittsburgh put up 48 shots on the Lightning.

"I don’t think we were attacking enough, and obviously we weren’t creating enough in their end,'' Lightning right wing Ryan Callahan said. "We were a lot of one-and-dones, not getting pucks through. We spent a lot of time in our own end.''

Despite that, Tampa Bay looked to head to locker room after two periods down by just two goals. But as has been a trend in this series, a late-period goal scored by the Penguins proved costly as Sidney Crosby scored with 26 seconds left to put the Lightning in a three-goal hole.

The Lightning would come to life in the third period, getting a pair of goals from Brian Boyle to cut the deficit to a goal with 7:17 left in regulation. But a Bryan Rust breakaway goal with 2:18 left made the late push obsolete, even as Tampa Bay fired 19 shots on goal - eight more than they had in the first two periods combined.

"We were just more aggressive,'' left wing Jonathan Drouin said. "Too much time in the first two periods was them skating and going wherever they wanted. We were just pressuring and moving our feet more in the third. That’s the way we have to start from the get go in Game 7.''

So now a back-and-forth series heads back to Pittsburgh once again in a winner-goes-to-the-Cup final game.

"We had our chance to knock them out tonight,'' Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "Give Pittsburgh a ton of credit for the way they played and how they handled things. They volleyed the ball into our court, and now it's time for us to smash it back.''

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