Wednesday night in New Jersey, game four between the Tampa Lightning and New Jersey Devils took place in the Prudential Centre, with Tampa leading the series 2-1 after the Devils won on Monday.
The first period saw the Devils take an early penalty, when, after just thirty four 
seconds, Taylor Hall hooked Brayden Point. The Devils, however, stopped Lightning striking.
Almost eight minutes in, Alex Killorn tripped Marcus Johansson, then less than thirty seconds later, Cedric Paquette tripped Taylor Hall to give the Devils a 5 on 3 opportunity. Kyle Palmieri took the opportunity, and put the Devils in the lead, assists from Hall and Will Butcher.
Tampa pushed back once they had their team back on the ice, and earned two goals within four minutes of each other, J.T. Miller with the first, following assists from Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov, then Miller and Braydon Coburn providing assists to Kucherov who made it 2-1 to the visitors.
The second period, with had four penalties (two for each team), but neither made it through to the goal. Tampa out shot New Jersey 12 to 5, but Cory Schneider put out some great saves for the Devils.
The third period, in the way of penalties was even cleaner than the second. First Miller took a penalty for Lightning after he slashed Hall. Not long after Miller returned to the ice, Andy Greene tripped Stamkos meaning Devils went back on the penalty kill.
Both teams upped the pressure in the third, the Devils knowing they were only one point behind wanting to head in to game five with the series levelled, and Lightning obviously wanting to be well out in the series lead.
With just over a minute to go, Miller sent the puck from the Devils zone to Kucherov in centre, pushing the puck straight down the ice in to the empty net, and the Lightning to a 3-1 lead over the Devils. With so little time left the Devils had no way to get back to take it to overtime, and suffered a defeat at home.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped twenty seven of the shots he faced, while Schneider managed to stop thirty four of the thirty six against him.
Game five will take place in Tampa on Saturday afternoon, where with a victory the Lightning could advance to the next round and take the Devils out of the playoffs.
You must be logged in to post a comment.