With under three minutes gone in the first overtime Tuesday night, Brian Boyle found himself to the right of the New York Islanders cage and the puck found him off a rebound which promptly deposited in the back of the net to give the Tampa Bay Lightning a 5-4 win a 2-1 series lead.
Thomas Greiss had no chance on the play having defended the goal from a shot from Victor Hedman from the left wing; the shot went around the cage to Boyle for the winner.
“I saw [Greiss] was down, and I tried to stay at the blue line because I saw [Callahan] had the puck,” Boyle said. “I tried to actually pass it to him but there wasn’t much of a lane there. I knew he couldn’t one-time it. Fortunate that I think it was [Hedman] who jumped up, and then I just tried to stop, looking for a rebound. It squirted out. It just kind of hit me in the foot. It was kind of a fortunate bounce.”
The goal was reviewed for Boyle questioned on entering the zone offside.
The Bolts were full of heroics on the night as Nikita Kucherov knotted the game at 4-4 when he scored with less than 40 seconds to go in regulation.
“I can’t sit here and say we were dead; we were down a goal late and had to rely on pulling the goalie, but you take away some chunk of the first period and it was scoring chances all over for both teams,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said.
With the extra attacker on the ice, the Lightning used precise passing to move the puck around the perimeter before Jonathan Drouin found Kucherov in the slot unmolested by the Islanders defense for the shot and tying goal.
Josh Bailey scored twice for the Isles and  Cal Clutterbuck and Nick Leddy added markers.
“We probably should have won this game tonight and we let it slip away from us,” Bailey said. “That side of it is frustrating. Obviously going forward, we have to try and lock games out and get the job done.”
Ben Bishop made 35 saves for the win and was busy in the first period when the Isles had 16 shots.
“The first period, we weathered the storm a little bit,” Hedman said. “It was a great battle. We were trading goals but got a big one at the end there. It was a big win for us. We lost home-ice advantage and had to come here to win games.”
Ryan Callahan, Hedman and Vladislav Namestnikov also scored for the Lightning.
“I don’t think we want to over-pass it, but when you find the open man, and you have a shot, let’s take it and get guys to the net,” Islanders captain John Tavares said. “We really controlled the play at times, we just have to keep getting bodies to the net and try to create more space, throw pucks on net, make it hard on Bishop and make it hard on their defense.”
Greiss made 36 saves in the loss.
Both teams went 1-for-4 on the power play.
Game 4 is in Brooklyn on Friday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVA Sports).
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