In Tampa, Steven Stamkos and Brandon Hagel hit for doubles on Saturday, and the Lightning cruised to a 6-3 win over the Panthers in Game 4 if their first round series. 
“We came out with fire and we got rewarded,” Tampa’s Victor Hedman said. “Special teams was big, power play, short-handed, 4-on-4 … those were the kind of goals we got and that’s big for us. They pushed back in the second, but I thought we had a tremendous third and deserved the win.”
The win forces the series to a Gam5, in Sunrise.
Tampa Bay took a 3-0 lead in the opening stanza.
Stamkos hit off the power play at 8:54, scoring off a sharp angle in the left circle, and a shot rebounded to him for the one-timer, and a 1-0 lead.
“It’s a period at a time for us at this point, for us that’s the mentality,” Stamkos said. “We had a great start, that’s something that we’ve been struggling with lately. Obviously to get a power-play goal, too, that was a big reason why we didn’t have success last game … to get that was a confidence boost.”
Hagel potted his first of the game at 8:09 of the first after stealing the puck in the defensive zone on a penalty kill. He drifted to mid slot area and wristed the puck home for the 2-0 advantage.
Seven minutes later Brayden Point skated the puck down the right side boards, went behind the net and wrapped the puck around the defenseman for a 3-0 lead after the first 20 minutes of play.
“We were a little bit slow and then we had a little problem with some special teams stuff tonight,” Florida coach Paul Maurice said. “That’s the recipe for a tough one.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves in the win.
In the middle frame, the Panthers’ Carter Verhaeghe took a a pass from the backboard and wristed it into the net to trim the deficit to 3-1.
“You give up three goals in the first … they’re a really good team over there and they are going to score goals,” Verhaeghe said. “We gave a valiant effort to come back and it wasn’t enough.
“It’s a best-of-7 series, we’re just going to try and win another game, we’ll have another opportunity next game and that’s all that we’re thinking about.”
Hagel picked up his double midway through the second period when he drifted right to left into the mid slot, again, for another wrister and a 4-1 lead to the Lightning. He was assisted by Mikhail Sergachev , who made his return from a broken leg suffered on 7 February.
“The body is an amazing thing because the body heals … it’s that mental hurdle you have to get over,” Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper said. “And at some point, he was going to have to play a game. You can tell when a player is ready and when a player is not ready. Yesterday, we knew he was ready.”
The Panthers replied with a pair of strikes to close the gap to 4-3 headed to the third period.
Sam Reinhart scored 90 seconds after the Hagel double to trim the deficit to 4-2. He scored off a rebound just as a power play ended.
“It was a bit of a strange game with the 5-on-4s, 4-on-4s, 5-on-3s and things like that,” Maurice said. “We’re going to have to find a way to stay out of the box.”
At 14:33 of the second, the Panthers had a jail break coming out of their zone with the puck findings its way to Oliver Ekman-Larsson who wristed it home from inside the left circle to send the game to the third period 4-3 to the Lightning.
Stamkos collected his double from the left circle with a quick snap shot for a 5-3 lead to the Lightning.
“I felt great, the fans were very loud for me and I appreciate that,” Sergachev said. “I felt like a hockey player again. Honestly, I couldn’t really sleep last night, it felt like my first NHL game again. And then you get that from the fans in the warmup, it made me very emotional. I’m just thankful to be here.”
Nicholas Paul scored off the power play at 16:22 for a 6-3 lead to Tampa. He hit off a rebound as the Lightning cycled the puck around the zone.
Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves in the loss.
“They played really well in the first period, they scored three goals in the first period,” the Panthers’ Aleksander Barkov said. “It’s tough to come back from a three-goal lead, but we almost did. That’s good for us, but obviously we don’t want that to ever happen again.”
You must be logged in to post a comment.