Lightning strike back to take first win of series
The Tampa Bay Lightning shook off the most one-sided shutout in Stanley Cup Final to post a convincing 6-2 win over the Colorado Avalanche at Amalie Arena, where the Bolts are now 8-1 during the postseason.
Pat Maroon, Ondrej Palat and Steven Stamkos each registered a goal and an assist, and Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman each had two assists for the Lightning, who halved the Avalanche’s lead in the best-of-7 series.
Anthony Cirelli, Nick Paul (GWG) and Corey Perry were the other goal-scorers for the Lightning, who got a 37-save performance from star goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Vasilevskiy became the seventh goalie in the NHL’s expansion era with ten or more wins in the Stanley Cup Final, joining Ken Dryden (24), Patrick Roy (18), Martin Brodeur (17), Billy Smith (17), Grant Fuhr (14) and Chris Osgood (11).
Gabriel Landeskog opened the scoring with a power-play goal 8:19 into the first period and notched another goal on the man-advantage in the second.
Darcy Kuemper started for the Avalanche and allowed five goals on 22 shots before he was replaced midway through the second period by Pavel Francouz, who finished with nine saves.
For more on Tampa Bay’s first win of the series visit Raw Charge and Mile High Hockey