In Raleigh, the visiting Tampa Bay Lightning found a way to overcome a lackluster offensive output, to defeat the Carolina Hurricanes, 2-1, on Tuesday night. 
The Game 2 win sends the series to Tampa with the Bolts up, 2-0.
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves, in the game to earn the victory.
“I feel like we blocked every shot tonight,” Vasilevskiy said. “It was just a great effort by our team. It was one of our best games so far in these playoffs.”
The Lightning had a total of 15 shots on goal on the night.
“Guys are on top of each other all over the ice,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “It’s probably why the scores have been so low, because guys are trying to play offense and trying to do things, but guys are playing defense at a high rate of speed. That’s why there’s no time and space.”
Game 3 is in Tampa on Thursday.
Alex Killorn opened the scoring when he gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead in the middle frame.
“I don’t think there’s going to be a lot of pretty passing-play goals in this series,” Tampa Bay’s Steven Stamkos said. “There’s not a lot of room out there offensively on both sides with the way that the teams defend, with the way that the goaltenders are playing. Even special teams tonight, it was more a penalty-kill clinic than a power-play clinic.”
Both teams were scoreless in two power play chances.
“Sometimes tonight we didn’t get there, but we had lots of good looks, a couple of empty nets we missed,” Carolina head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “It was a pretty good game, we played pretty hard. We’re playing the best team in the world, going toe to toe. We’re not getting overwhelmed. We just didn’t get a break. We’re doing everything we’re trying to do. We just haven’t gotten that little breakthrough yet.”
Anthony Cirelli pushed the lead to 2-0 at 8:06 of the third period.
“Once I saw it was stuck in his feet, I just poked at it,” Cirelli said. “My momentum carried me on the backhand to get a little room there, and I was just trying to put one on net.”
With the extra attacker on the ice for the Canes, Andrei Svechnikov finally got Carolina on the board with 90 seconds left in regulation.
“I mean, we all know, he’s one of the best goalies in the world,” Svechnikov said of Vasilevskiy. “It’s hard to score against him. But we probably have to put some skin against him and shoot some pucks more and more.”
Alex Nedeljkovic made 13 saves in the loss.
Carolina’s Vincent Trocheck left the game after a collision that apparently left him injured. He skated one shift after the hit with the Canes’ Warren Foegele in the second period; he skated one shift in the third period and did not return.
“It doesn’t look good,” Brind’Amour said. “I don’t know exactly the extent of it at this point, but he obviously couldn’t continue, so that’s never good. He would play if he could. That’s another challenge we’re going to have to overcome, but I’ll know more tomorrow, hopefully.”
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