The Tampa Bay Lightning and St. Louis Blues were confronted by the reality that neither team was playing its best hockey going into Game 4 of its respective conference final series.
Both responded with impressive efforts that left both series tied after four games.
The Lightning still have a few questions to answer because they jumped on the backs of Ryan Callahan, Tyler Johnson and Jonathan Drouin to build a 4-0 lead on the Pittsburgh Penguins before giving up three third-period goals and hanging on for a 4-3 victory on Friday.
The Lightning responded to back-to-back losses by dictating the pace against the Penguins and opening up a big lead. However, when Phil Kessel unleashed a hard wrister that beat Andrei Vasilevskiy, it blunted Tampa Bay's momentum. Evgeni Malkin and Chris Kunitz followed with goals to get the Penguins close, but the Lightning held on for the much-needed victory.
The San Jose Sharks blanked the Blues in back-to-back games, and though St. Louis only trailed the series by a 2-1 margin, it felt like a much greater deficit.
Head coach Ken Hitchcock inserted goalie Jak ...
Read Full Article at Bleacher Report - NHL
Article written by Steve Silverman
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