The desperately over used cliche of “no lead is safe” borders on the inane most days. On Saturday, it was still inane, but apropos as the Lightning rallied from a two-goal 
deficit in the middle frame to defeated the Carolina Hurricanes, 6-4.
The Game 4 win gives Tampa Bay a 3-1 series heading to Raleigh on Monday.
“The first period wasn’t great, but obviously we fought back and we were in good spots,’ Hurricanes head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “Obviously the penalties were what turned the game. That’s the game in a nutshell. You can’t take six penalties and that’s what happened.”
The Lightning scored three times in the second period, after the Canes had taken a 4-2 lead, to take over the lead at 5-4.
Andrei Vasilevskiy locked down the goal in the third period and made 21 saves for the win.
Brayden Point gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead in the opening frame.
Teuvo Teravainen and Jesper Fast replied for a 2-1 lead to the Canes.
“We wanted to come out harder than we did in the first,” Fast said. “We played the right way, got a goal. We’re up 4-2, had the momentum, and it went pretty quick there when they scored three straight goals. It’s tough, but we have to find a way to bounce back. Unfortunately, we didn’t.”
Steve Stamkos scored off the power play for the first of his two goals on the day for a 2-2 tie.
“We score four on [Vasilevskiy], we need to win that game,” Brind’Amour said. “He’s probably not going to let four in again. I just think, again, the other day, we weren’t sharp, then we got going. We had some good momentum and the penalties killed us.
The Lightning were 3-for-6 on the power play.
“Eight goals scored, probably the craziest playoff period you are going to see the rest of the way,” Stamkos said. “Certainly exciting for the fans, but I give our guys credit, we go down two goals on a couple of unfortunate bounces, I didn’t think we were really playing our game. We just kind of talked about staying in the moment, we get a couple of power-play goals late and capitalized.”
Dougie Hamilton and Jaccob Slavin seemingly put the Canes in control at 4-2 midway through the second period.
“I really liked the way we played in the third period, we have to kind of use that and harness that and play that way the entire game,” the Lightning’s Alex Killorn said. “I think when we had the lead, we played really structured hockey. It’s not like we’re sitting back, we’re still being aggressive, you just have to be in the right spots with good positioning and good structure. I thought for most of the third period that was really good.”
Nikita Kucherov (power play), Stamkos (power play) and Tyler Johnson scored the three Bolts goals to give them the lead before the second period horn sounded.
“You could see the guys responding well, the bench stayed calm,” Kucherov said. “We knew what to do, we just had to make that switch and start playing the right way. Take care of our zone and create some chances down there and that’s what we did.”
Kucherov added his second strike of the game in the early minutes of the third period for the 6-4 final.
“He was just making plays all over the place,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said of Kucherov. “I thought he might’ve been the best player on the ice tonight. When ‘Kuch’ is doing some of the stuff he did tonight, he’s borderline unstoppable. It’s great to see him do what he did tonight because we definitely needed him.”
Petr Mrazek made 20 saves in the loss.
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