Stamkos, Lightning defeat Stars in Game 3 of Stanley Cup Final, take lead

Steven Stamkos scored on his first shot in his postseason debut, and the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Dallas Stars 5-2 in Game 3 to take the lead in the Stanley Cup Final at Rogers Place in Edmonton on Wednesday.

"It was just an amazing experience to share with my teammates," Stamkos said. "There's been a lot of hard work and different things going on behind the scenes. Just to be able to get out in a game and have an impact in a game which a month ago may have never been possible. It was amazing to be part of a huge win for us. I was just really happy to obviously contribute in a game that I didn't play too much."

Stamkos scored on the third of his five shifts in his first game since Feb. 25 to give Tampa Bay a 2-0 lead. He didn't play the final 46:18 even though he sat on the bench for most of the second period and all of the third.

The forward missed Tampa Bay's first 21 games with a lower-body injury sustained before training camp began July 13. He was limited to 2:47 of ice time, which Lightning coach Jon Cooper said was unexpected.

Neither Cooper nor Stamkos would elaborate on what prevented the Lightning captain from returning to the game. Stamkos said it's too early to determine if he will be able to play in Game 4 in Edmonton, the hub city for the Cup Final, on Friday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, CBC, SN, TVAS).

"But I think just the lift he gave us, A) being able to dress and play, B) scoring, I don't think the guys were going to be denied," Cooper said. "We've gone through this dance this whole playoffs playing with 11 forwards, so it wasn't anything that these guys were panicked about. As you saw, especially in the second period, it was game on."

Victor Hedman had a goal and two assists, and Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point and Ondrej Palat each scored and had an assist for Tampa Bay. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 22 saves.

Jason Dickinson and Miro Heiskanen scored for the Stars, who have lost two in a row for the first time since Games 5 and 6 of the Western Conference Second Round against the Colorado Avalanche.

Anton Khudobin allowed five goals on 29 shots in the first and second periods. Jake Oettinger played the third and made three saves.

The winner of Game 3 when a best-of-7 Cup Final is tied after two games is 22-7 (75.9 percent) winning the series.

"You regroup and go on to the next one," Dickinson said. "It's one game at the end of the day. We're down 2-1. We play the next game and win, it's tied 2-2, new series."

Kucherov gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead when he scored on a breakaway at 5:33 of the first period off a turnover by Heiskanen as he was being pressured by Palat.

"You don't see him make those mistakes, but he didn't get a whole lot of help there either," Stars coach Rick Bowness said. "Sometimes you just need a little help to make a simple play."

Stamkos put the Lightning ahead by two at 6:58 when he scored with a high shot to the far side from the bottom of the right face-off circle.

Stamkos didn't score in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final, a six-game loss to the Chicago Blackhawks, when he played 121:12 in 148 shifts. It took him 1:26 of ice time to score his first goal in this Cup Final.

"At this time of the year, you want to do anything you can to help your team win," Stamkos said. "I've watched these guys be so committed to what our end goal is, and to be part of it tonight, it was a dream come true."

Dickinson scored shorthanded at 11:19 to make it 2-1.

Tampa Bay took a four-goal lead in the second period.

Hedman scored on the power play at 54 seconds to make it 3-1. It was his 10th goal, third behind Brian Leetch (11 for the New York Rangers in 1994) and Paul Coffey (12 for the Edmonton Oilers in 1985) for most by a defenseman in a single postseason.

"That's a huge 3-1 goal for us after we'd given up a shorty just earlier in the last period," Cooper said. "The timing of a lot of things he's done has been remarkable, but I guess if you do great things all game, your timing is always going to be good."

Point scored off an odd-man rush to make it 4-1 at 12:02, and Palat made it 5-1 at 18:55.

Heiskanen scored at 6:49 of the third for the 5-2 final.

"You want to have a say and you want to contribute, so tonight was an amazing experience to get out there and help our team," Stamkos said. "But it's about winning the next game and going from there."

NOTES: Stamkos is the second player in NHL history to score when playing his first game of that postseason in the Stanley Cup Final. Billy Taylor Sr. also did so for the Toronto Maple Leafs in the 1940 Final against the Rangers. ... Bowness didn't have an update on forwards Alexander Radulov or Denis Gurianov. Radulov left the game at 10:05 of the third period after crashing shoulder-first into the end boards. Gurianov left the game late in the third after getting hit in the face by the puck as he sat on the bench.