It looked like Game 3 was heading to overtime until Ondrej Palat scored with 42 seconds remaining in regulation to lift the Tampa Bay Lightning to a huge 3-2 win over the New York Rangers at Amalie Arena.
After taking a crossing pass from Victor Hedman, Nikita Kucherov found Palat with a nice backhand dish and he beat Igor Shesterkin short-side to give the Lightning its first win of the series.
Tampa Bay had to rally from a two-goal deficit after Mika Zibanejad and Chris Kreider scored power-play goals 2:07 apart in the second period,
Kucherov got the Lightning on the board with a power-play one-timer with the assists going to Hedman and Steven Stamkos. The goal came sixty-six seconds after Kreider’s.
Stamkos would tie the tilt 1:22 into the final framer with the game’s fourth power-play goal when he hammered in a beautiful pass from Corey Perry. Kucherov drew the secondary assist on Stamkos’ sixth of the postseason.
Tampa Bay kept Shesterkin busy all afternoon, firing 52 shots on the 26-year-old netminder. Andrei Vasilevskiy finished the game with 28 saves.
More at Raw Charge and Blueshirt Banter
Tonight’s game
- Colorado Avalanche at Edmonton Oilers (Colorado leads 3-0) 8 p.m. TNT/
Pregame at Mile High Hockey and Copper & Blue
No Selke for Barkov
Boston Bruins center Patrice Bergeron won the Selke Trophy as the NHL’s best defensive forward for a record fifth time over the weekend. The 36-year-old Bergeron was named on 194 of 195 ballots submitted by the Professional Hockey Writers Association and placed first on 160 of those ballots. Calgary Flames forward Elias Lindholm came in second in the voting and Florida Panthers center Aleksander Barkov was third. Barkov, who won the award last year, received ten first place votes.