In Tampa, the Lightning held a 2-0 lead in the second period before the Carolina Hurricanes rallied back to force extra time on Monday night.
Yanni Gourde end the Canes’ ideas of winning when he potted the game-winner at the scored at the 2:50 mark of the extra session for a 3-2 win.
“There was a lot of room, but Alex [Killorn] won his 1-on-1 in the corner, he battled for the puck and won it again,” Gourde said. “I just tried to get a shot off as quick as I could, and I was fortunate enough to get a rebound. I just followed the puck and went to the net. That’s where I usually score my goals. I tried to keep it simple.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 25 saves to get the win.
“There were two good teams out there,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “We had a game plan in place and they executed it. The guys did a good job.”
Brady Skjei scored for the Canes in the third period to get the game even at 2-2 and force the over time session.
“I think we can learn from this,” Skjei said. “I don’t think we played the full 60, and it showed. We had good spurts of play, but overall, it wasn’t our best. Petr played a heck of a game. We’ve got to come back tomorrow, so we’ll learn a few things on video and get right back at it.”
Alex Killorn and Brayden Point scored for the Lightning for the 2-0 lead.
“The whole game it seemed like there was some kind of pent-up energy,” Killorn said. “I’m really happy with the entire game. With the amount of games that there are remaining … you want to play a certain way.”
Carolina cut the lead to 2-1 when Andrei Svechnikov scored in the middle frame.
“I think he’s played fine all year,” Carolina head coach Rod Brind’Amour said. “I know everyone judges, and he does too, I’m sure, on goals, but he’s always making plays out there. He had a great game tonight, really. He’s been doing this all year.
“I hope for his sake he just relaxes and plays a little bit and doesn’t get asked all the questions about getting goals. Because you can’t really control all that. Sometimes they go in and sometimes they don’t. It’s the overall play we’re looking for.”
Petr Mrazek made 33 saves in the loss.
“I don’t think we had emotion at all,” Brind’Amour said. “They might’ve treated it like a playoff game, but I don’t think we did. It’s all about little plays that we didn’t do today. We need to up the ante a little bit …
“It wasn’t good enough. We got lucky to get a point out of that. Our goalie bailed us out. We had spurts where we were playing right, but it wasn’t good enough.”
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