Special teams lift Lightning to Game 4 victory over Red Wings

By @StefanKubus –

DETROIT – Just like in Games 1 and 2, Nikita Kucherov opened the scoring in Tuesday night’s Game 4 at Joe Louis Arena.

And like those games, the end result proved to be the same: a Lightning victory, this time a 3-2 final sparked by the Bolts’ power play.

Kucherov potted a pair of man-advantage goals, Ondrej Palat recorded a third power-play goal for his team in the final minutes that proved to be the game-winner, while Jonathan Drouin tallied three assists. Darren Helm and Gustav Nyquist found the back of the net for Detroit, while Petr Mrazek allowed three goals on 33 shots.

“We obviously lost the game on specialty teams, both the power play and the penalty kill,” Red Wings head coach Jeff Blashill said. “Regarding the power play, I thought we had too many unforced errors, I didn’t think we won enough pucks, I think they did pressure us and did a good job of not letting us set up, so you have to win those pucks. Once we got set up, we didn’t do, in my opinion, a good enough job of finding ways to get pucks to the net.”

Blashill added that while six penalties isn’t a terribly-high amount, it becomes concerning with the way the Lightning power play is clicking.

“The fact that they punished us is the thing I’m most concerned aboutm” Blashill said. “The last penalty is a penalty taken because of a D-zone breakdown. We have to make sure we don’t take hooks, we have to make sure we don’t take easy ones or give the referees easy chances. You’re probably going to get three or four, just the way the games have been called. We have to make sure we do a better job on the penalty kill and a better job on the power play.”

Helm said that the Wings’ penalty kill just didn’t have the answer for the potent Tampa power play, adding that the Wings need to convert on their own chances when they get them. Detroit went 0-for-4 with the man advantage, while the Bolts went 3-for-5.

“It sucks when you don’t capitalize on those opportunities,” Helm said. “We have to play hungry and score on those chances…it’s tough. I thought we played well enough to win this game, but they played good as well. We just have to regroup and get this next one.

“They made a few adjustments, and we couldn’t find an answer for it. Obviously it’s got to be way better than that. The PK lost the game for us. We take a lot of pride in that, and it’s a tough one to give up three like that. We have to find ways to be better and find answers for that power play, they’ve got lots of weapons. Tonight they were able to click and score some goals.”

Kucherov opened the scoring at 5:41, as he took a cross-slot pass at the right circle from Tyler Johnson who was stationed along the goal line at the right of Mrazek and one-timed it home just nine seconds into a Lightning power play.

The playoffs’ leading scorer then added his second of the game, another power-play tally, at 10:31 of the middle frame, finishing off a pretty passing play with Drouin.

But Detroit managed to get that one back before the end of the period, as Helm found the back of the net off a nifty feed from Luke Glendening.

And in the period’s dying seconds, Justin Abdelkader cleared a puck off the glass in his own zone and down the ice. Riley Sheahan was able to pick up the puck, throw a saucer pass over to Nyquist, and he buried it with 8.4 seconds remaining to even things up heading into the third period.

On a power play late in the final frame, Dylan Larkin had a golden chance to put Detroit up 3-2, throwing a quick backhand shot   off the post in tight.

“It was a great pass by Kronner, he found me there just hanging around by the net and I thought it went off the post and off the back bar, but obviously it didn’t,” Larkin said. “It was a good bid I guess. That’s a move that I’ve used before, it just beat the goalie but hit the post. It’s just frustrating.”

With just under three minutes to play and the Bolts on the man advantage, Palat tipped home a Drouin centering pass to put Tampa up 3-2 late with his team’s third power-play goal of the evening.

“As bad as it hurts, that’s the way it goes sometimes,” Larkin said. “When we took that penalty, they were buzzing around there, you could feel it coming and it hurts that it came down to that. I think I wouldn’t blame our loss on the power play. I think we took a step forward in that, we had shots and had our chances, it’s just disappointing it came down to that.”

With the Lightning victory, the series shifts back to Tampa with the Bolts leading 3-1 and the Red Wings’ season on the line in Game 5 Thursday night.

Notes: Kyle Quincey drew back into the lineup in place of Alexey Marchenko. Marchenko took a hard hit in Game 3 that saw his head slam into the glass.