The Stanley Cup was in the building, and the Colorado Avalanche were so close to taking care of business quickly, but the Tampa Bay Lightning reminded everyone why they’re the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs, with another late goal from Ondrej Palat giving the Bolts a big Game 5 win to head back to Tampa Bay.
Getting the opening goal was essential for the Lightning, and they managed to get it from an unsuspecting source. Jan Rutta walked in and absolutely blasted the puck past Darcy Kuemper to give the Lightning the lead late in the first period, his first goal of the playoffs.
The Avs thought they had it tied before the intermission, with Nathan MacKinnon on a breakaway and even beating Andrei Vasilevskiy, but after sneaking it through the Tampa goalie’s five hole, the puck went just wide, and it was still 1-0 after one period.
But that carried over into the second. The Avs had all the pressure, and were rewarded with a goal, as Cale Makar put the puck on net, and as Vasilevskiy struggled to grab it, the rebound went right on Valeri Nichushkin’s stick, and he buried the rebound to tie the game.
The Lightning responded quickly though. They took advantage of Makar being in the penalty box for two minutes for a tripping call, and scored on the ensuing 4-on-3 power play, thanks to a Nikita Kucherov bomb for his first of the series, giving the Bolts a 2-1 lead.
And much like the first period, the Avs thought they had it tied off a breakaway late in the period again, this time Makar with an insane end-to-end play that he couldn’t quite finish off.
But not to worry, Makar got it all tied up early in the third anyways. Like the first goal, he threw the puck on net, and amidst the chaos, it trickled through Vasilevskiy to tie the game.
It was back and forth for the rest of the period, with the game seeming like we were going to see another overtime. But Ondrej Palat came up clutch for the Lightning once again, scoring with just over six minutes left in the game to give the Bolts the lead again.
And while making an attempt for a late push to tie the game, the Avs got a bit of (possible) karma, getting called for too many men after Lightning head coach Jon Cooper was adamant that the Avalanche had too many men on the ice when Nazem Kadri scored the Game 4 overtime winner. It was a huge kill to their momentum, and while Colorado got some chances still, they couldn’t get that tying goal for a third time, and the Lightning win 3-2, and we head back to Tampa for Game 6 with the Avs still leading the series 3-2.
And while there is no updates on this report, there might be even worse news for the Avalanche, as Nichushkin was carted to the X-ray for a potential injury.
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