TAMPA, Fla. — Nikita Kucherov scored on a breakaway and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 33 saves Tuesday night time to assist the Lightning shut down the Rangers, 4-1, and even the Japanese Convention finals at two video games apiece.
Kucherov took a go from Ondrej Palat in the course of the ice, skated towards Rangers goaltender Igor Shesterkin and put the puck by him to offer Tampa Bay a two-goal lead simply over 13 minutes into the second interval.
Pat Maroon and Steven Stamkos additionally beat Shesterkin, whereas Palat added an empty-net objective for the Lightning, who’ve rebounded from dropping the primary two video games of the collection at Madison Sq. Backyard to maintain their bid to change into the primary workforce in almost 40 years to win three consecutive Stanley Cup titles alive.
Sport 5 is Thursday night time in New York, the place the Rangers received Video games 1 and a couple of and are 8-1 this postseason.
Vasilevskiy stopped 28 of 30 photographs to win Sport 3 and was even higher Tuesday, when he prolonged a shutout streak to almost 67 minutes earlier than Artemi Panarin scored on the facility play 16 minutes 27 seconds into the third interval.
Till Vasilevskiy’s bid for a shutout ended, the Rangers hadn’t scored since Chris Kreider’s power-play objective put them forward 2-0 at 9:44 of the second interval in Sport 3.
It has been all Tampa Bay since then, with Kucherov and Stamkos scoring to wipe out the Sport 3 deficit earlier than Palat’s game-winner within the ultimate minute.
The Lightning began quicker Tuesday night time, scoring on Maroon’s rebound simply 2:38 into the sport.
It was the third objective of the playoffs for Maroon, 34, a fourth-line ahead who’s chasing a fourth consecutive Stanley Cup title after successful with St. Louis in 2019 after which Tampa Bay in 2020 and 2021.
Stamkos’s objective constructed the result in 3-0 early within the third interval. Palat’s objective with 8.7 seconds remaining gave him a three-point night time.
Shesterkin, who confronted 51 photographs in Sport 3, stopped 27 of 30 photographs Tuesday.
The Rangers performed with out ahead Ryan Strome, who has a lower-body damage and was scratched after skating in pregame warmups. He was injured Sunday, when he exited within the second interval after enjoying solely a bit of over seven minutes. Rangers ahead Filip Chytil left simply previous the midpoint of the second interval on Tuesday after successful by Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman. He missed the remainder of the sport with an upper-body damage.
The Lightning performed for the seventh straight sport with out ahead Brayden Level, who has been out of the lineup since struggling a lower-body damage throughout Sport 7 of Tampa Bay’s first-round victory over the Toronto Maple Leafs.
