Ryan Callahan provided an early spark, Andrei Vasilevskiy made two big saves in the closing minutes to avoid a total third-period collapse and the Tampa Bay Lightning held on for a 4-3 victory over the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference finals.
Callahan tipped a shot past goalie Matt Murray just 17 seconds into the game. Andrej Sustr, Jonathan Drouin and Tyler Johnson also scored and the Lightning rebounded from being badly outplayed in the previous two games to even the series 2-2 heading back to Pittsburgh for Game 5 on Sunday.
Vasilevskiy had a 4-0 lead entering the third period, but the Penguins didn’t give up. Phil Kessel and Evgeni Malkin scored to give Pittsburgh hope, and Chris Kunitz’s power-play goal trimmed the deficit to one with just under 7 minutes remaining.
Tampa Bay was outshot 16-7 over the final 20 minutes after dominating the first two periods.
Marc-Andre Fleury replaced Murray in goal for the Penguins at the start of the third, and Kessel’s team-leading eighth goal began the rally that just fell short.
The Lightning were outshot 89-49 in the previous two games, a disparity that coach Jon Cooper called “unacceptable” after the Penguins took a 2-1 series lead.
But the experience of the highs of lows of last year’s playoff run to the Stanley Cup final has served the defending conference champions well over the past month.
While acknowledging there was a sense of urgency to play better, Cooper and his players insisted the team was not overly discouraged after being badly outplayed in Games 2 and 3 because they been down in series before and found ways to come back.