On Saturday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning drove a bit closer to the Stanley Cup Final with a 3-2 win over the Washington Capitals.
After trailing in the series, 0-2, the Bolts have rallied for three straight wins and now head to Washington to try to close out the series on the road where they are 5-1 this 
post season.
“Our whole coaching staff in team meetings, the message was, ‘It doesn’t really matter how you get there,'” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “That was a good job by us putting behind what wasn’t good for us in the first two games and trying to find a recipe for success and trying to go out and execute that plan as close as we could to 60 minutes. We’ve gotten close to that 60-minute game, and tonight was obviously, I think, the best step in the right direction there, but it’s only three-fourths of the way done. Next one is going to be a lot of fun but a huge challenge.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy continued with his hot hand and made 28 saves to get the win.
“Laser focus by our guy,” Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper said of Vasilevskiy’s save on Carlson. “You need the big save at the end when you’re holding on to a one-goal lead, and he gave it to us. The team propelled us to that lead in front of him, and he gave it to us, closed it out in the end.”
Ondrej Palat, Cedric Paquette and Ryan Callahan scored for Tampa.
Paquette scored with just 19 seconds gone in the game and it ensured the crowd was engaged.was
The Capitals got goals from Evgeny Kuznetsov and Alex Ovechkin with Ovechkin’s coming with the cage empty in a 6-on-5 setting with under two minutes left in the game.
“We just have to win two games,” Ovechkin said. “Our goal is to come back here and play a Game 7.”
The Caps now need to win on home ice, something of a house of horrors for them this post season and then back to Tampa for a Game 7 in they stretch the series out.
“This group has responded all year,” Capitals coach Barry Trotz said. “I don’t expect anything different.”
[WATCH: All Capitals vs. Lightning highlights | Complete Lightning vs. Capitals series coverage]
Braden Holtby made 19 saves in taking the loss.
“A lot of people counted us out when we were down 0-2 (against the Columbus Blue Jackets) in the first round,” the Caps’ Matt Niskanen said after the loss. “Things got hard in the last series (against Pittsburgh) and we could have melted, and we just kept playing. So that’s what we’ve got to do again. Bring our best effort for Game 6 at home, win a game, and then we’ll go from there. But we’re focused on bringing our best game of the season for Game 6, and we’ll be ready to go.”
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