In Tampa, Pat Maroon scored early in the first period for the Lightning to set the tone for the entire match as the Bolts evened their series with the New York Rangers, 2-2, after 4-1 win in Game 4.
“We’ve progressively gotten better, and I think we took some more positive steps tonight,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “We had a bit of a layoff, and I think now we’re starting to find our game and now we just have to keep this going in New York.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 34 saves in the Lightning win.
“We’ve been desperate the last couple of games,” Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos said. “We knew how important they were to get back in this series. We’ve done it but we can’t sit on our hands and be happy with that. We’ve got to keep moving forward.”
Game 5 is Thursday night in New York.
Artemi Panarin was the striker for the Rangers.
“I think there were moments we were disjointed,” New York forward Chris Kreider said. “I think they did establish a pretty good forecheck and were able to reset pucks on us a lot and keep us in our own zone. That’s when the details matter more.”
Panarin scored off the power play in the third period after Tampa had taken a 3-0 lead.
Nikita Kucherov scored in the middle gran for a 2-0 lead to Tampa, and Stamkos struck early in the third period for the 3-0 lead.
“I think it starts in the [defensive] zone,” Maroon said, “neutral zone, moving more coming back to the [defensemen], supporting them in the neutral zone and getting our five-man rush, and the [defensemen] are jumping up into [the] play. So we’re getting back to our speed game here and find ways to get pucks behind them and go to work like we used to.”
Ondrej Palat added a late empty goal for the 4-1 final.
“Every team is dealing with injuries,” Rangers defenseman Jacob Trouba said. “We like the depth of our team. We think we can manage and overcome injuries. It’s not something we’re looking at or thinking about too hard. Do we miss them? Yeah. Do we hope they come back? Yeah. But you’ve got to be able to play without them.”
Igor Shesterkin made 27 saves in the Rangers loss.
“It’s not easy, but we can’t be sad,” Panarin said. “For sure it’s not going to help us. Try to be positive. We have to be positive. We’ve been in a worse spot before, so we’re OK. I hope we do well in [Madison Square] Garden. Our fans, nice to see again. Try to do something more.”
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