"To be honest, you would have never known sitting in the locker room after Game 2 that we were down 0-2,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "And so, riding into this game wasn't going to guarantee the result, but I knew damn well how the effort was going to be and they delivered”
For a third straight game, Florida held a 1-0 lead before the fifth minute of hockey. And still, the Lightning never wavered.
Florida stopped a Lightning clearing attempt, and Sam Bennett skated the puck through the left side of the zone. The puck rolled off his stick but found Matthew Tkachuk at the right post, and the latter tapped home the game’s opening goal 2:43 into the first period.
Tampa Bay responded late in the period, as Brayden Point’s second goal of the series tied the game 1-1.
Nikita Kucherov slipped through two Florida players near the blue line with a cutback move above the right circle and tapped a pass to Guentzel, whose shot hit Point and beat Sergei Bobrovsky on the blocker side with 2:45 left in the first period.
“It’s a different feeling, a little bit of a confidence boost there,” Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh said of going into the intermission tied. “You could just feel our forwards took it up another notch there as far executing, hanging onto pucks, playing a little bit more poised and composed and seeing things happen out there, so that’s a great sign."
Nick Paul’s first goal of the series gave the visitors the lead for good. A give-and-go with Gage Goncalves in the neutral zone created a 2-on-1, and Paul opted for a shot from the left faceoff circle that slipped through Bobrovsky’s left skate 6:43 into the second period.
“We were just playing good hockey,” Paul said. "When you’re moving North and you’re getting pucks to the net and you just keep building momentum, you know one’s going to go. From there you’ve just got to keep building on it. We had a great couple shifts before that, we were just building and building.”
Guentzel and Kucherov needed only 21 seconds of period three to make it 3-1 during a short look at 4-on-4. Kucherov’s pass from behind the goal line met Guentzel near the left post, where Guentzel’s shot surprised Bobrovsky for the 3-1 goal.
“Getting the lead is huge,” Cooper said. "You look at the way this game is, and the first few minutes of the game goes down and we’re down 1-0 and the building is buzzing, and that’s where I just think the mental strength of our team is to be able to wrap your head around that and then keep going, and eventually we get the tier. But when you pierce that bubble of, ‘Okay, now we have the lead’, I think that was a big weight off our shoulder was finally getting that. And then eventually we extended it and protected it."
Tampa Bay added more offense late, first with Luke Glendening’s finish on another 2-on-1 rush with 5:31 left in the game. Anthony Cirelli closed the night with his empty-net goal 31 seconds later.
Guentzel found an open Cirelli for the last goal despite being targeted with a late hit by Tkachuk, who was given a five-minute major for interference on the play.
“He’s the definition of a gamer,” Glendening said of Guentzel. "The bigger the moment, the brighter he shines.”
Guentzel finished the night with a goal and two assists to co-lead all players alongside Nikita Kucherov, who had three assists. Goncalves and McDonagh each had two assists.
Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made numerous key stops, including five with Tampa Bay shorthanded. He ended the night with 33 saves.
Tampa Bay’s penalty kill finished the night 4-for-4 on a night that multiple players saw more time than usual on those units due to Brandon Hagel’s absence while serving a one-game suspension.
