TAMPA -- Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper said his team was able to exhale after winning Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round series against the Detroit Red Wings because they finally won a Stanley Cup Playoff game together.
But there were no such exhales after a comeback 3-2 overtime win in Game 4 because the best-of-7 series is tied 2-2 and all attention is focused on Game 5 at Amalie Arena on Saturday (6 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, TVA Sports, FS-D, FS-F).
"Even with all the emotions after the win in Game 4 we know there's a lot of work that needs to be done," Cooper said. "It was a great win but it doesn't mean that we're going to win the series."
The Lightning continue to receive good production from the line of Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat, but Cooper would like to see captain Steven Stamkos find more scoring opportunities. Cooper switched up the lines when the series was in Detroit, pairing Stamkos with Brian Boyle and Jonathan Drouin at times in Game 4.
"He's had some opportunities where the puck has been on his stick and it just hasn't gone his way, but it will happen sooner than later," Cooper said. "There's just not a lot of room out there for anyone, especially someone like [Stamkos], who is a scorer and draws a lot more attention than most. When we had the rare opportunities for some open ice we have to capitalize on it like we did in the last six minutes of regulation and first two minutes of overtime in Game 4."
But Cooper said he doesn't want the Lightning to lose their defensive integrity as they try to look for new ways to get one another the puck.
"Like I've said before, it's not about how many pucks we put into the net but about how many of their pucks we keep out of the net," Cooper said. "You can't give up goals right now."
Here are the projected lineups:
RED WINGS
Justin Abdelkader - Henrik Zetterberg - Gustav Nyquist
Darren Helm - Pavel Datsyuk - Tomas Tatar
Joakim Andersson - Riley Sheahan - Tomas Jurco
Drew Miller - Luke Glendening - Landon Ferraro
Niklas Kronwall - Jonathan Ericsson
Brendan Smith - Marek Zidlicky
Scratched: Stephen Weiss, Teemu Pulkkinen, Daniel Cleary, Jakub Kindl, Alexey Marchenko
Injured: Erik Cole (spinal contusion), Johan Franzen (concussion)
LIGHTNING
Alex Killorn – Steven Stamkos – Ryan Callahan
Ondrej Palat – Tyler Johnson – Nikita Kucherov
Vladislav Namestnikov – Valtteri Filppula – Cedric Paquette
Jonathan Drouin – Brian Boyle – J.T. Brown
Victor Hedman – Anton Stralman
Nikita Nesterov – Jason Garrison
Scratched: Mark Barberio, Brenden Morrow, Andrej Sustr
Injured: none
Status report: Cooper would not reveal his plans for the lineup after holding a meeting Saturday morning. "You'll have to come to the game find out," he said. … Callahan did not participate in practice Friday; it was called a maintenance day.
Who's hot: Johnson had two goals and an assist in Game 4, and Palat scored the game-tying goal.