Lightning advance to Eastern Final, will play Penguins or Capitals

The Tampa Bay Lightning advanced to the Eastern Conference Final and will play the Washington Capitals or Pittsburgh Penguins.
Tampa Bay eliminated the Boston Bruins with a 3-1 win in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Second Round on Sunday.

The Lightning have reached the conference final three times in the past four seasons. They lost to the Penguins in seven games two seasons ago.
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The Capitals lead the Penguins 3-2 in that best-of-7 second-round series. Game 6 is at Pittsburgh on Monday (7 p.m. ET; NBCSN, SN, TVAS).
The Lightning would have home-ice advantage.
"It's great. I haven't been a part of [getting to a conference final in 10 games]," forward J.T. Miller said. "The rest is a weapon at this time of year. The other teams are going to beat each other up for hopefully two more games here. We're still not taking anything lightly because that team, whoever we're going to play, is going to earn the right to be here too and they're going to be hungry."
Tampa Bay won two of three games against Washington this season, one in overtime. Andrei Vasilevskiy played all three with a 2.33 goals-against average and .930 save percentage. Nikita Kucherov (two goals, two assists) and Brayden Point (three goals, one assists) led the Lightning with four points each.

Capitals goalie Braden Holtby played one game against the Lightning, taking a 4-2 loss Feb. 20. Alex Ovechkin scored two goals in the three games, and Nicklas Backstrom led Washington with four points (one goal, three assists).
Tampa Bay won two of three games against Pittsburgh. Alex Killorn had six assists, and Steven Stamkos (two goals, three assists) and Kucherov (three goals, two assists) had five points each. Vasilevskiy was 2-0-0 with a 2.50 goals-against average and .928 save percentage. Peter Budaj allowed five goals in a 5-2 loss Nov. 25, the final game between the teams.
The Penguins did not have goalie Matt Murray for any of those games. Phil Kessel led Pittsburgh with five points (two goals, three assists). Sidney Crosby had three points (two goals, one assist), and Evgeni Malkin had no points playing two games.
Tampa Bay won two previous series against Washington (2003 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals in six games, 2011 Eastern Conference Semifinals in four games), and one against Pittsburgh (2011 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals in seven games).
The Lightning led the Penguins 3-2 in the 2016 conference final before losing Games 6 and 7. Bryan Rust scored twice in Pittsburgh's clinching 2-1 win, when Stamkos came back to play after missing the entire playoffs following surgery to repair a blood clot.