In Toronto, Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves as the Tampa Bay Lighting defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets, 2-1, Monday afternoon in Game 4 of their series.
The win pushes the Lighting advantage to 3-1 in the series.
Barclay Goodrow scored 16 seconds into the middle frame for a 1-0 lead to the Bolts..
Less than four minutes later, Yanni Gourde made the score 2-0.
“Every game, it’s been a battle, and I don’t expect anything different going forward,” Tampa’s Blake Coleman said. “They’re not going to be a team that lays over for us. So being up 3-1, it’s great, but it doesn’t mean anything if we don’t take care of business here. So we’ve got another game coming up here in 36 hours or whatever it is, so we’ve just got to turn our focus to that, and I have no doubt that this group will be ready.”
“They’re like gnats,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “I feel like they’re always just buzzing around, and as you try and knock them away, they just never leave. And they’re pests. They put work ethic above everything else, they’re selfless players, and they don’t have an off switch. And they’re finally being rewarded for their work.”
Cam Atkinson had the lone Blue Jackets goal in the loss when he scored at 5:48 of the second period.
“We can’t get frustrated,” Columbus coach John Tortorella said. “We’re still in a series. We improved in that area, we improved in our forechecking. We just have to get ready for our next game. We need to make a couple more big offensive plays and score some goals. No sense in getting frustrated. We just have to get ready for our next game.”
Game 5 is set for Wednesday and the Jackets will need a tall performance from more than the goaltender to get to Game 6.
[WATCH:Â All Lightning vs. Blue Jackets highlights]
Joonas Korpisalo made 20 saves in the loss.
“When you don’t score for a while, things start to get a little frustrating,” the Blue Jackets’ Zach Werenski said. “But we know we’re capable of it. We just have to play our game and the goals will come.”
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