In a game filled with wild momentum swings, Nick Bonino scored with 2:33 remaining to give the Pittsburgh Penguins a 3-2 win against the San Jose Sharks in Game 1 of the Stanley Cup Final at Consol Energy Center on Monday.
Game 2 of the best-of-7 series is here on Wednesday.
On the winning goal, Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang barged into the offensive zone with the puck and eventually found himself against the end wall, facing San Jose defenseman Brent Burns, who was without his stick. Using that mismatch to his favor, Letang fired a crisp pass that eluded Burns and defense partner Paul Martin before finding Bonino. Without hesitation, Bonino snapped a shot that glanced off the blocker of goalie Martin Jones into the net.
Rookies Bryan Rust and Conor Sheary scored first-period goals for Pittsburgh, and Matt Murray made 24 saves. Tomas Hertl and Patrick Marleau scored to tie the game in the second period for San Jose, and Jones made 38 saves.
This was the seventh straight Cup Final Game 1 decided by one goal, a streak that started with a 6-5 win by the Chicago Blackhawks against the Philadelphia Flyers in 2010. It also was the sixth straight season when the winning goal has been scored in the final five minutes of the third period or later.
Pittsburgh is the first Eastern Conference team to win Game 1 of the Cup Final since the Carolina Hurricanes defeated the Edmonton Oilers 5-4 in 2006.
The Sharks, playing in their first Stanley Cup Final in their 25-year history, needed a strong second period to get back into a game that got away from them in the first period when the Penguins scored twice in a 62-second span.
San Jose had a 27-13 advantage in shot attempts during the second period.
Hertl scored a power-play goal at 3:02 to make it 2-1, and Marleau, the longest-tenured Sharks player, tied it 2-2 with a wraparound goal that beat Murray to the far post.
The Penguins took advantage of a slow start by the Sharks, and right wing Rust and left wing Sheary scored to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead with 6:12 remaining in the first period.
It was the first time since 2009 that two rookies scored for the same team in a Stanley Cup Final game (Jonathan Ericsson and Justin Abdelkader for the Detroit Red Wings against the Penguins), and the second time rookies scored the first two goals (Howie Morenz of the Montreal Canadiens scored both in a win against the Calgary Tigers of the Western Hockey League, two years before the Stanley Cup Playoffs became a tournament for only NHL teams), according to Elias Sports Bureau.
Rust, who scored two goals in a 2-1, Game 7 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday, has six this postseason, a Penguins rookie record (Michel Briere had five in 1970). Rust has five goals in 55 regular-season games. Rust played one shift after he took an illegal check in the head from Marleau in the third period. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said Rust is day-to-day with an upper-body injury.
Pens Quotes
Sidney Crosby: "It's one game, but I think we did a lot of good things. First and third (periods) we were really strong, generated a lot of chances. We saw a lot of their strengths, especially in the second, with how good they are at getting pucks to the net and holding on to pucks down low. They play pretty fast. Just two teams who want to get to the exact same game. I thought we did a really good job in the first and third of doing that."
"I think that we just did a really good job of not trying to feel the game out, especially early. I thought we did a good job of just playing and trying to get to our game, and it gave us a big boost to get that kind of start."
Kris Letang: "What happened behind the goal line, I just noticed that Burns lost his stick or broke his stick. I had a little bit more time to make a play and I found [Bonino] on the back door."
Nick Bonino: "It's one of those shots that wasn't my hardest shot by any means, but just found a way to kind of flip it over him. Great pass from [Letang]."
Sharks Bites
Logan Couture: "They came out flying. It looked like we were stuck in mud. Shouldn't happen. Obviously this is the first time for a lot of guys, so maybe that was it. This time of the year, the games are too big to have a start like that."
Peter DeBoer: "We started to play the way [in the second period] we're capable of playing."
The Pittsburgh Penguins will play in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time since 2009 after defeating the Tampa Bay Lightning 2-1 in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference Final at Consol Energy Center on Thursday. The Stanley Cup Final against the San Jose Sharks begins here on Monday.
In a Game 7 full of big-name players, including Tampa Bay captain Steven Stamkos in his return to action, Penguins rookie forward Bryan Rust scored twice and rookie goalie Matt Murray made 16 saves. Stamkos, Tampa Bay's leading goal-scorer during the regular season, played for the first time since March 31 after having surgery for a blood clot. He played 11:55 over 20 shifts, 5:26 of that in the third period. Stamkos had a chance to tie the game 2-2 late in the second period, but Murray got just enough of his snap shot to steer it wide of the left post with 3:49 remaining.
Penguins captain Sidney Crosby said Pittsburgh was aware Stamkos would present a challenge. Crosby scored the game-winning goal in Game 2, 3 and 6. In the seven years between Stanley Cup Final appearances, Crosby said he never doubted Pittsburgh would make it back. The Penguins had last won a Game 7 in the 2009 Cup Final against the Detroit Red Wings. Pittsburgh had lost three consecutive Game 7s since.
Rust, in his first Game 7, gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead 1:55 into the second period. Evgeni Malkin received a stretch pass from defenseman Olli Maatta before leaving the puck near the blue line for Chris Kunitz, who passed to Rust coming into the zone between the faceoff circles. Rust sent a snap shot over goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy's glove for his fourth goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
After going 11 games without a goal since scoring twice against the New York Rangers in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference First Round, Rust has scored three goals in his past two games.
Jonathan Drouin tied the game 1-1 with his fourth goal of the series 9:36 into the second period, but Rust scored 30 seconds later. A slap shot from defenseman Ben Lovejoy bounced off the end boards and to the right of the net, where Vasilevskiy attempted to freeze it with his glove. The puck came free and Rust poked it between Vasilevskiy and the right post to give Pittsburgh a 2-1 lead. Rust's five playoff goals are the most by a Penguins rookie since Jan Hrdina scored four in 1999. The Penguins held a 29-10 shots advantage through two periods, and finished 39-17.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper credited Pittsburgh but said Tampa Bay, who lost the Stanley Cup Final to the Chicago Blackhawks last season, could have been more aggressive. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan, who took over Dec. 12 after Mike Johnston was fired, regularly stressed a team concept and said he felt that was evident Thursday. He said Game 7 might have been the "most complete 60-minute effort" Pittsburgh has had.
Pens Quotes
Bryan Rust: "The big dream is still yet to be achieved. I credit my linemates for elevating their game and helping me elevate mine. It just happens that I was the one who put the pucks in the net."
Sidney Crosby: "He's [Stamkos] a world-class player, and they're adding him to their team. You look how dangerous he is, and for even missing the amount of time he did, he looked pretty good out there. …
"We weren't sure what was going to happen -- I think we just tried to worry about us -- but it's hard not to know if he's out there and be aware of that."
"It's not easy. Having gone through a couple of those early on, 20 and 21 years old, playing in the Finals, I think you have more of an appreciation for it now. Just love the opportunity to be able to get back."
Mike Sullivan: "I think we have evolved into a team in the true sense of the word, and I think tonight, that was on display. … We wanted to play in their face and in the gaps tight … I think we took the speed away that makes Tampa Bay so dangerous. I know there’s a lot of stories that surround this group, but the greatest story of all is the group itself."
Bolts Quotes
Steven Stamkos: "I thought I beat him [Murray]. It just went through him and out the other side. It was close, but we didn’t generate enough offensively in order to win a game."
Jon Cooper: "We got caught. When we were in those situations, we probably should have shot and we passed. We got caught in between on a lot of occasions. They play [defense] well. They block a lot of shots. That was evident this whole series. The amount of shot blocks was just incredible."
The San Jose Sharks will play in the Stanley Cup Final for the first time after a 5-2 win against the St. Louis Blues in Game 6 of the Western Conference Final at SAP Center on Wednesday. The Sharks, who started play in 1991-92, won the best-of-7 series 4-2 and will face the winner of the Eastern Conference Final between the Pittsburgh Penguins and Tampa Bay Lightning, which will be decided in Game 7 on Thursday.
Joel Ward scored two goals, and Martin Jones made 23 saves for the Sharks. Captain Joe Pavelski, rookie Joonas Donskoi and Logan Couture scored.
Jones is the only Sharks player who has won the Cup; he did that as the backup goalie for the Los Angeles Kings in 2014. Dainius Zubrus is the only other Sharks player who has played in the Stanley Cup Final; he lost in 1997 with the Philadelphia Flyers (to the Detroit Red Wings) and in 2012 with the New Jersey Devils (to the Kings).
Patrick Marleau has played 1,411 regular-season games for San Jose.
Marleau and Joe Thornton (1,347) have combined to play 2,478 NHL regular-season games, the most by two teammates each making the Cup Final for the first time.
Vladimir Tarasenko scored his first two goals of the series, each in the third period, and Brian Elliott made 22 saves for the Blues, who lost in their third elimination game of the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs. They defeated the Chicago Blackhawks in Game 7 of the first round and the Dallas Stars in Game 7 of the second.
Pavelski gave San Jose a 1-0 lead at 3:57 of the first period with his playoff-leading 13th goal. Thornton shot high and wide left on a breakaway, but Pavelski got the puck behind the net and jammed it inside the right post on a wraparound past Elliott, who was looking the other way. Elliott returned to the net after backing up Jake Allen in Games 4 and 5 and made his 18th start of the playoffs.
The Sharks made it 2-0 at 5:02 of the second when Ward deflected Burns' shot from the point past Elliott. Chris Tierney controlled the puck along the boards below the goal line and sent a long pass to Burns near the left boards. Burns sent the puck toward the crease, and Ward scored his fifth goal.
The Blues killed a double-minor penalty with Scottie Upshall in the box for high-sticking Tommy Wingels. St. Louis center Jori Lehtera almost scored, but Jones made a left-pad save of his shot from the low right circle with a little more than nine minutes left. Jones, who gave up seven goals on 40 shots in the previous two games, made another left-pad save of Colton Parayko's shot from the right circle with 5:30 to go.
Ward made it 3-0 at 3:01 of the third period. Couture sent him a pass in front of the crease from the right circle, and Ward put the puck inside the right post for his second two-goal game in a row. Donskoi scored at 8:11 of the third, taking a pass from Couture and scoring from the slot on an odd-man rush.
Tarasenko took a pass in the left circle from Lehtera and beat Jones with a shot to the upper left corner at 11:39. It was his eighth goal of the playoffs but first since Game 7 against Dallas. He scored again with 3:35 left after the Blues pulled Elliott for an extra attacker. Tarasenko beat Jones with a sharp-angle shot inside the left post. Couture scored into an empty net with 19.7 seconds left.
Sharks Bites
Brent Burns: "It's great. You dream of getting the chance to play for this. It's a great feeling. We know we've got one more step to take to really let loose. It's incredible."
Patrick Marleau: "Just trying to seize the moment."
Peter DeBoer: "It's a great night for those guys. I also told the group that I've been this far once before (as coach of the Devils in 2012). As great a night as this is, if you don't win the next round, it's still not a great summer. I think we'll enjoy this tonight and our focus will turn to the big prize on Friday."
"We didn't want to go to Game 7. I think we recognized how dangerous a team they are. I think history has proven that you want to finish these series as quickly as possible, get as much rest as possible. I think mission accomplished."
Martin Jones: "It was probably only two or three saves I had to make tonight, and the rest we did a great job in front of the net. I was able to get a good read on it and it just kind of hit me. ... It's been a real group effort. I think that's what's most special about moving forward here."
Joe Thornton: "It's not the end goal. I'll tell you that."
Blues Quotes
David Backes: "Man, the stop is pretty sudden and the flood of emotions, of, obviously disappointment, but also a level of pride and how proud we are of the group in there. There's a few guys held together by tape and a few guys that have sacrificed a ton in there to get to this point. There's a group of guys in there that bound together and defeated two really good teams and played a third really good team and didn't find a way in this one. ... You sit here and you say what could be with two more wins and a Stanley Cup Final and a group that I think did a heck of a job. [Darn], two more wins and you're playing for that ultimate prize."
Ken Hitchcock: "I thought the third goal allowed them to play with five back. Then we had to take some risks. But for me, the third goal was the killer."
The Pittsburgh Penguins extended the Eastern Conference Final with a 5-2, Game 6 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning at Amalie Arena on Tuesday.
Game 7 is at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh on Thursday. The winner will advance to the Stanley Cup Final.
Penguins goalie Matt Murray made 28 saves, 17 in the third period. Murray, who turns 22 on Wednesday, was back in net after Marc-Andre Fleury played in a 4-3, Game 5 overtime loss. Murray, who was pulled from a 4-3, Game 4 loss after giving up four goals in two periods, had to survive a push from the Lightning before the Penguins scored two late goals.
Phil Kessel, Kris Letang, Sidney Crosby, Bryan Rust and Nick Bonino scored for Pittsburgh. Brian Boyle scored twice for the Lightning, who lost Game 6 in a series for the third consecutive time. Tampa Bay also lost Game 6 of the 2015 Eastern Conference Final at home to the New York Rangers before winning Game 7 on the road (2-0).
Kessel gave the Penguins a 1-0 lead with 1:14 remaining in the first period on a power-play goal. Pittsburgh had a two-man advantage after Victor Hedman joined Anton Stralman in the penalty box on a delay of game. Kessel deflected a pass from Crosby into the net for his ninth goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Pittsburgh took a 2-0 lead 7:40 into the second period on Letang's second goal of the playoffs. With Patric Hornqvist providing a screen, Letang took a wrist shot from the right circle that beat Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy high on the stick side.
Crosby's scored his third game-winning goal of the series with 26 seconds remaining in the period. He skated around Stralman and beat Vasilevskiy with a wrist shot through the five-hole to make it 3-0. Crosby has six goals this postseason.
Boyle's first goal, at 5:30 of the third period, came when his centering pass to Braydon Coburn was tipped by Kessel and got past Murray to make it 3-1.
Boyle made it 3-2 with 7:17 left off a wrist shot from the left circle that beat Murray in the top left corner. Slater Koekkoek had one of the assists, his first NHL playoff point.
Rust got behind the Lightning defense for a breakaway goal to make it 4-2 with 2:08 remaining. Bonino scored an empty-net goal with 54 seconds left.
Tampa Bay and Pittsburgh played a Game 7 at Consol Energy Center in the 2011 Eastern Conference First Round. The Lightning won 1-0 on a goal by Sean Bergenheim. The Penguins are 2-7 in Game 7 at home.
Pens Quotes
Mike Sullivan: "[Murray] doesn't get rattled. If he lets a goal in, he just continues to compete. … Usually it takes years to acquire that, and to have it at such a young age is impressive. That's always impressed us about him. Certainly it's impressed me since I've got to know him and watch him as a goaltender but also as a person."
"These are the types of circumstances where you have an opportunity to write your own story, and that's what we wanted to do. There's certain things that go on out there that you can't control, but what you can control is your attitude, your determination, your work ethic, your never-say-die mindset."
Matt Murray: "It's not my job to worry about [coach's] decision.It's my job to be ready if my name is called, and if my name is called, to go out and play my heart out and compete."
Sidney Crosby: "As soon as I turned with the puck, I could tell they were probably in the middle of coming up the gap. So I just tried to get some speed off that turnover there that [Hornqvist created], and had a lane and just tried to hit it. That's a great play by him; if he doesn't backcheck, it's probably a nothing play and they're going back the other way."
Chris Kunitz: "It's nice to get out to a lead, but we knew they were going to make a push. We don't want to sit back, but you see the speed and skill plays [Tampa Bay] has when they can move the speed through the neutral zone. We have to be better at not letting them get into that game. I'm sure that's what they want to do to us for the first 40 minutes and not let us get in our game."
Bolts Quotes
Brian Boyle: "We had a great chance tonight and kind of tiptoed around it a little bit. We were tentative and weren't aggressive. We weren't on top. We weren't skating."
Jon Cooper: "They played better than us for two periods. All their players pretty much played better than all our players for 40 minutes. All our players played probably better than them for 20 minutes. We have to play better. That's the bottom line. Usually the team that plays better wins."
Joe Pavelski scored twice, including the go-ahead goal 16 seconds into the third period to help the San Jose Sharks to a 6-3 win against the St. Louis Blues in Game 5 of the Western Conference Final at Scottrade Center on Monday.
Pavelski, who has a six-game point streak (four goals, five assists), tipped a right point shot past Brent Burns to break a 3-3 tie. Pavelski won a faceoff after Blues defenseman Jay Bouwmeester iced the puck six seconds into the third.
San Jose has a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series and is one win away from reaching the Stanley Cup Final for the first time in franchise history. Game 6 will be played Wednesday at SAP Center.
Joel Ward scored twice, Joe Thornton had three assists and Marc-Edouard Vlasic had a goal and an assist for the Sharks. Chris Tierney had an empty-net goal and Martin Jones made 18 saves. Jaden Schwartz, Troy Brouwer and Robby Fabbri scored for St. Louis. Jake Allen made 21 saves.
It's the fourth straight year the Blues, who fell to 4-6 at home in the Stanley Cup Playoffs, have lost a game at home in Game 5 of a series that was tied 2-2.The Blues entered Monday uncertain whether forwards David Backes and Fabbri, each injured in Game 4, would be available, but they were able to play.
The Blues had the early pressure, but the Sharks grabbed a 1-0 lead after winning a faceoff in the Blues zone, and Vlasic's first goal of the postseason, a shot from the left point got past a screened Allen 3:51 into the game.
St. Louis responded fairly quickly when Schwartz scored his first in 14 games on a rebound. Defenseman Kevin Shattenkirk took the initial shot that Jones saved, then Patrik Berglund threw the puck into the slot, it caromed off David Backes and Schwartz was there to collect the loose puck at 7:04 to tie the game.
Brouwer's baseball-style goal, his eighth in 19 playoff games with the Blues after having seven in his first 78 playoff games, came off a rebound of a Paul Stastny shot at 15:08 of the first to give St. Louis a 2-1 lead.
The Sharks got their power play going in the second period, and Ward tied it at 4:37 after Vlasic's initial shot from the left circle hit the near post, caromed off Allen's back in the crease and Ward batted the puck in.
Fabbri put the Blues ahead 3-2 after he scored when his slap shot from the point beat a screened Jones near side at 11:58 of the period, but Pavelski tied it with the Sharks' second power-play goal in as many opportunities when he converted from the slot with 1:27 remaining in the second. Tierney scored an empty-net goal with 53.9 seconds remaining and Ward scored another one with 31.6 seconds left.
The Tampa Bay Lightning put the Pittsburgh Penguins on the brink of elimination when they took their only lead of Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final. Tyler Johnson scored 53 seconds into overtime to give the Lightning a 4-3 victory at Consol Energy Center on Sunday. Nikita Kucherov passed the puck to Jason Garrison in the left circle, and Garrison’s shot grazed off Johnson in front of the net and got past Penguins goalie Marc-Andre Fleury. The Lightning lead the best-of-7 series 3-2. Game 6 is in Tampa on Tuesday.
The Penguins blew leads of 2-0 and 3-2 with a chance to move within one victory of the Stanley Cup Final. Kucherov tied it 3-3 with 3:16 remaining in the third period with his second goal of the night and NHL-leading 11th of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. It was Pittsburgh’s first loss in the regular season or playoffs when leading entering the third period; they were 46-0-0.
Alex Killorn also scored for the Lightning, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 31 saves.
Johnson started with a full cage on his helmet before switching to a full visor in Game 4 on Friday after he was hit in the face with a puck in warmups. He wore a half-visor Sunday and said he turned away from Garrison’s shot because he thought it was headed for his face.
After Lightning forward Ryan Callahan had his shot hit the right post with 3:52 left and bounce along the goal line, Johnson set up Kucherov for the tying goal.
Johnson backhanded the puck into the crease after taking a drop pass from Kucherov along the half-wall on the left wing. Kucherov collected the rebound and wrapped around the Penguins net to beat Fleury. It was Fleury’s first start of the playoffs. He replaced rookie Matt Murray in Game 4 and made seven saves on seven shots in his first game action since sustaining his second concussion of the season March 31. Fleury had backed up Murray since being cleared to return for Game 3 of the second round against the Washington Capitals. Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said he would like to review Fleury’s performance before assessing it.
Pittsburgh lost a second consecutive game for the first time since losing two straight against the Carolina Hurricanes on Jan. 12 and Tampa Bay on Jan. 15.
After the Penguins let a two-goal lead slip away, Chris Kunitz put them back in front when he scored with 49.6 seconds remaining in the second period to make it 3-2. Evgeni Malkin stripped Lightning defenseman Anton Stralman of the puck in the neutral zone before passing to Olli Maatta, who charged into the Tampa Bay zone. Maatta carried the puck below the goal line before spinning and sending it out in front of the crease. Malkin gathered the pass and sent it into the crease, where Kunitz whacked a shot past Vasilevskiy.
Tampa Bay dug itself out of the 2-0 hole with two quick goals in the second.
Killorn cut the Penguins lead in half when he scored at 13:15. After Andrej Sustr found him in the left circle, Killorn roofed a shot through a small window between Fleury's blocker and the crossbar for his fifth goal of the playoffs.
Kucherov tied it 1:10 later with his first goal.
After battling through a first period with little offense, the Penguins took a 1-0 lead 0.7 seconds before the intermission on the first NHL playoff goal of defenseman Brian Dumoulin’s career. Forward Bryan Rust held off Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman while carrying the puck to the crease, where he slipped a shot off Vasilevskiy's right pad before stumbling over him. Dumoulin followed the play, collected the rebound and shot off Hedman's leg and into the net. Dumoulin had not scored since he got first NHL goal on Dec. 15, 2014, also against the Lightning.
Patric Hornqvist made it 2-0 with his seventh playoff goal 1:30 into the second period. Sidney Crosby passed to Maatta at the point, and Maatta sent a shot-pass to Carl Hagelin to the left of the net. Hagelin deflected the pass through the crease to Hornqvist, with Vasilevskiy committing to Hagelin, and Hornqvist tapped it into the open net. Maatta entered the lineup in place of defenseman Trevor Daley, who is out the rest of the postseason with a broken ankle. Maatta was a healthy scratch Games 2-4.
Pens Quotes
Marc-Andre Fleury: “It wasn’t the best I’ve felt in a game. Still though, I’ve been practicing a lot. I should’ve been better. … It’s tough to lose.”
Olli Maatta: “I felt OK out there. I know I can be better. Definitely, as I said, it’s all about wins and losses this time of year.”
Bolts Quotes
Tyler Johnson: “We’re in the exact same position we were in last year [against the New York Rangers in the conference final]. We were able to win and go back home, and we want to get [the win this year] in Game 6 in front of our home fans.”
Jon Cooper: “He’s a winner. That’s what winners do. They don’t back down. When there’s a challenge ahead of you, you have to find a way to meet that challenge. Tyler Johnson has proven that long before he came to the Tampa Bay Lightning.”
Goaltender Jake Allen provided the momentum change the St. Louis Blues were looking for in Game 4 of the Western Conference Final at SAP Center on Saturday. Allen made 31 saves in his first start of the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Kyle Brodziak and Troy Brouwer each scored two goals, and the Blues defeated the San Jose Sharks 6-3 to tie the best-of-7 series 2-2. Game 5 is at Scottrade Center in St. Louis on Monday.
Allen started instead of Brian Elliott, a move coach Ken Hitchcock hoped would help St. Louis recapture an edge in the series. Hitchcock also shuffled his top three lines, leaving only the fourth line from Game 3 intact: Brodziak centered Dimitrij Jaskin and Magnus Paajarvi.
Hitchcock said he'll wait until Sunday to name a starting goaltender for Game 5, but Allen appeared to have earned that role.
Sharks goaltender Martin Jones, who was coming off back-to-back shutouts, gave up four goals on 19 shots and was pulled at 10:11 of the second period with San Jose trailing 4-0. He was replaced by James Reimer, who allowed one goal on seven shots in his first playoff appearance with San Jose.
Joe Pavelski, Chris Tierney and Melker Karlsson scored in the third period for the Sharks, who outshot the Blues 16-5 in the period. The Blues, on the other hand, got back to playing their strong, no-frills game.
The Blues took a 1-0 lead at 6:14 of the first period on Brouwer's power-play goal with Brent Burns in the penalty box for tripping Jaden Schwartz. Robby Fabbri sent a pass from below the goal line to Brouwer, and he beat Jones with a wrist shot from the right circle to the far side for his sixth goal of the playoffs.
The goal was St. Louis' first since 9:15 of the second period of Game 1 when Lehtera scored in a 2-1 victory. It ended San Jose's streak of eight penalty kills in the series. Jones' shutout streak ended at 153:57, short of Evgeni Nabokov's Sharks record of 178:14 set in 2004.
St. Louis extended their lead to 2-0 when Jori Lehtera scored from the slot at 10:11 of the first period. Jones made a diving stick save of Fabbri's shot from the low left circle, but Lehtera capitalized on a Burns turnover and beat Jones with a wrist shot.
Brodziak made it 3-0 at 6:09 of the second period with a shorthanded goal, his first goal of the playoffs. A long pass by Sharks forward Joe Thornton turned into a turnover in the offensive zone, igniting a 2-on-1 rush the other way. Schwartz made a cross-ice pass, and Brodziak beat Jones from the right circle to the upper left corner of the net. Brodziak scored again at 10:11, taking a pass from Jaskin and beating Jones from the left circle through the five-hole. Allen, who hadn't started a game since April 3, said he was ready.
Pavelski made it 4-1 at 1:05 of the third period with his playoff-leading 10th goal. He tapped in a pass from Thornton from along the left boards. Brouwer redirected Alexander Steen's shot from the point past Reimer for a power-play goal at 3:55, making it 5-1.
Tierney scored an unassisted goal on a sharp-angle shot at 6:57 of the third. Alex Pietrangelo scored into an empty net at 15:39 for St. Louis, and Karlsson scored an unassisted goal from close range at 16:28 for San Jose. Sharks coach Peter DeBoer said he expects his team to bounce back.
Blues captain David Backes didn't play in the final two periods after sustaining an undisclosed injury in the first. Fabbri did not play the final 16:05. Hitchcock said he expects them to be ready for Game 5. Blues defenseman Joel Edmundson, who was scratched in Game 3, returned to the lineup in place of Robert Bortuzzo.
Sharks Bites
Tommy Wingels: "We got away from our game. Our game is going north with it, it's making plays when they're there. It's getting pucks past their [defensemen], through the neutral zone and in on the forecheck. And we got away from that. We turned pucks over, we turned it into a track meet for the first 20-30 minutes, and this team's not going to win when we play that way."
Chris Tierney: "We knew they were going to come out like that. The problem was our game. We weren't hard enough. We didn't do the little things. We were lazy a couple times. We made a bad change, our line, on the second [goal]. Just stuff like that we usually don't do. They came out harder and outworked us tonight. We were lazy. They were beating us inside, at their net, along the walls. It seemed like we got outbattled early, and we could never really recover from it."
Peter DeBoer: "We've been consistently good for a while. We didn't execute tonight. We got burnt. We got what we deserved because of our execution. Short memory. We'll move on to the next game. We've had one or two of these games throughout the playoffs and we've always responded the right way."
Blues Quotes
Ken Hitchcock: "[Allen] gave us exactly what we needed. He's a competitive son of a gun. We needed a battler in there. We needed somebody to really help us play better defense. We played with more passion in front of him in our own zone because I made the goalie change. I had to make that decision. I just felt like we were allowing them too much open space with [Elliott] in there, and [he] was getting bombarded. We needed to just dig in a little bit deeper defensively if we were going to have a chance in this series."
"We have to play a lot of the way we played today if we expect to win. We played fast. We played physical. We created turnovers. We have to play like that. If we do it like that, continue down this path, I like our chances. I like our chances to win."
Jay Bouwmeester: "It's two teams that want to play pretty similar, possess the puck in the other team's end, and it seems whoever has controlled that has really controlled the games."
Kyle Brodziak: "He made a great pass over to me. Fortunately I was able to put it in the net. It feels good to chip in."
Jake Allen: "I've tried to practice as hard as I can. My comfort level is really high, and I felt confident out there."
The Tampa Bay Lightning scored in the first minute, built a big lead, and then held on to defeat the Pittsburgh Penguins 4-3 in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final at Amalie Arena on Friday. The best-of-7 series is tied 2-2 with Game 5 at Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh on Sunday.
Tyler Johnson scored after he was injured during warmups, and Andrei Vasilevskiy made 35 saves for the Lightning, who led 4-0 before the Penguins scored three times in the third period. Ryan Callahan gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead 27 seconds into the first period with his second goal of the Stanley Cup Playoffs. Callahan redirected a slap shot from Victor Hedman that went over goalie Matt Murray's glove.
The goal was the second-fastest to start a playoff game in Lightning history, according to the Elias Sports Bureau. Adam Hall scored 13 seconds into Game 2 of the 2011 Eastern Conference Final against the Boston Bruins. Andrej Sustr scored his first goal at 14:28 of the first period to give the Lightning a 2-0 lead. Alex Killorn dropped a pass to Nikita Kucherov down the left side; he passed to Sustr, who joined the rush late and was uncovered, for a goal into an open net.
Jonathan Drouin scored on a power play 14:38 into the second period after Penguins defenseman Kris Letang was called for two minor penalties. Drouin had the puck in the slot and tried to make a pass to Ondrej Palat in front, but the puck deflected off Palat's skate back to Drouin, who scored into the open side of the net.
Tampa Bay extended their lead to 4-0 at 17:38 when Johnson scored his sixth goal. He tipped in a pass from Kucherov that took a funny bounce off his stick and went over Murray's glove. Johnson played wearing a full shield after he was hit in the face by a deflection of his shot before the game.
Murray made 26 saves and was replaced by Marc-Andre Fleury to start the third period. It was Fleury's first game since March 31; he had been sidelined by a concussion. Pittsburgh made a push in the third period starting with Phil Kessel's eighth goal, a wrist shot that beat Vasilevskiy on the stick side that made it 4-1 at 1:18. Nick Bonino was able to control a loose puck off a bounce and sent a pass to Kessel in stride with a clear path to the net.
Evgeni Malkin scored his first goal since April 28 to make it 4-2 at 11:13. Chris Kunitz scored a power-play goal off a rebound with 6:52 left to make it 4-3.
Penguins defenseman Trevor Daley left the game with 9:07 left in the second period after taking a hit from Callahan on the boards. Daley was unable to put any weight on his left leg as he was helped off the ice. Sullivan did not provide an update afterward, but Daley left the arena on crutches.
Pens Quotes
Mike Sullivan: "We were not the more determined team for the first half of the game. They are a good team, and we knew this was going to be a hard game."
Kris Letang: "There's no comfortable lead in this league. Sometimes things aren't going to go your way and you have to refocus. We're capable of doing a lot of things out there, but you have to have the right mindset. You saw that in the third period."
Chris Kunitz: "If you look at the series, whoever is going to win the 50-50 battles and put pucks in deep [will win]. If you start turning pucks over, [Tampa Bay] is potent on the rush. They score goals, they like to spread the zone and hit guys late [with passes]. We have to do a better job to make sure we have the details down and putting pucks in deep and play more in their end."
Bolts Quotes
Ryan Callahan: "We wanted to have a good start, and obviously when you score on the first shift it helps and it gets the team going. Overall, that was our main concentration. I thought we had a good start in Game 3 and let it slip after about 10 minutes. So it was important for us to continue that push and continue that momentum."
Andrej Sustr: "I was trying to jump up the play there and beat [Pittsburgh's] forwards up the ice. [Kucherov] made a great play through the defenseman and found me on the back door, and it was a little bit of an easy job to put it in the open net."
Jon Cooper: "It doesn't matter how you get there. Sure we elevated the heart rate of 18,000 people. We felt we deserved to be where we were. Did I think [Johnson's] goal was going to end up being the game-winner? No, I didn't. But I didn't think we ever really lost control of the game."
The San Jose Sharks are in the Western Conference Final for the fourth time in their history, but they'd never led a series this deep into the Stanley Cup Playoffs until Thursday. Tomas Hertl scored two goals, Martin Jones made 22 saves for his second straight shutout, and the Sharks defeated the St. Louis Blues 3-0 in Game 3 at SAP Center to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-7 series. The Sharks are two wins away from their first trip to the Stanley Cup Final, but they're not looking past Game 4, which is in San Jose on Saturday. Jones is the first goalie in Sharks history with back-to-back playoff shutouts.
It was Jones’ third shutout of the playoffs, all in the past four games, tying Evgeni Nabokov for most in a single postseason (2004) in San Jose history.
Jones has not allowed a goal since Blues forward Jori Lehtera scored at 9:15 of the second period in Game 1. St. Louis has gone 150:45 without scoring.
The Blues needed seven games to defeat the Chicago Blackhawks in the first round and seven to move past the Dallas Stars in the second round. Blues goaltender Brian Elliott allowed three goals on 14 shots and was replaced by Jake Allen at 6:09 of the third period after Hertl scored his second goal.
Hertl scored in the first and third periods for his first multigoal NHL playoff game. Joonas Donskoi scored in the second period, and Pavelski and Joe Thornton each had two assists.
The Blues had the first four shots, but the Sharks took a 1-0 lead when Hertl scored at 15:53 of the first. St. Louis defenseman Colton Parayko committed a turnover on a pass in the neutral zone, and Thornton moved the puck ahead to Pavelski. The San Jose captain sent a cross-ice pass through traffic to Hertl, who beat Elliott from the top of the left circle with a slap shot high to the glove side.
The Sharks made it 2-0 at 11:44 of the second period on Donskoi's fourth goal of the postseason. Once again, the Sharks capitalized on a turnover. This time, Donskoi broke up Robby Fabbri's pass in San Jose's end and started a 3-on-2 rush. Logan Couture passed from the left circle to the trailing Donskoi, who was wide open in the slot and scored on a wrist shot.
The Blues got their only power play of the game at 15:01 of the second when Couture was called for high-sticking Patrik Berglund. San Jose killed its eighth straight penalty since St. Louis scored on its first power-play opportunity of the series in Game 1.
The Blues were outshooting the Sharks 15-13 after the second period but trailed by two goals. San Jose is 7-0 in the playoffs when leading entering the third.
Hertl increased San Jose's lead with 13:51 left when he scored his fifth goal of the playoffs. He took a pass from Thornton below the goal line, skated in front of the crease and beat Elliott with a wrist shot.
Hitchcock promised changes to his lineup for Game 3, and there were plenty of them. Forwards Dmitrij Jaskin and Magnus Paajarvi replaced Steve Ott and Scottie Upshall on the fourth line. Paajarvi played his first career NHL playoff game. Defenseman Robert Bortuzzo replaced rookie Joel Edmundson in the lineup and skated on the third pair with Carl Gunnarsson. Parayko moved up to the second pair with Kevin Shattenkirk.
Hitchcock also moved center Alexander Steen from the third line to the first. Steen traded places with Lehtera and skated between Jaden Schwartz and Vladimir Tarasenko. Lehtera skated between Berglund and David Backes.
The Blues dominated play early but couldn't score. St. Louis defenseman Alex Pietrangelo said the Blues "took our foot off the gas" after the first 10 minutes.
Sharks Bites
Joe Pavelski: "It's a long ways to go. It really is. We'll worry about this next game and we'll take it from there. Got to have that same kind of energy. The crowd was great. It's a fun atmosphere out there."
Martin Jones: "We've done it as a group. I'm not being asked to steal these games."
Logan Couture: "We capitalized on a turnover on the first one, and Hertl made a big shot. Second one, same thing. A turnover and [Donskoi] was able to walk down the middle of the ice there and make another great shot."
Peter DeBoer: "They made some changes to the lineup, they made some changes to their structure a little bit too. They tried to push us back a little bit, create a little bit more space. I think it took us a little bit to adjust. I thought the first five, 10 minutes of the game, we were on our heels a little bit. But, you know, as the game wore on, we got more comfortable with how it was going to be played. I thought we got into a real rhythm and really took control."
Blues Quotes
Ken Hitchcock: "You got to win four games. This is nothing. ... We're the first team of these two teams that's taken the bump now. Somebody had to be down 2-1. Neither one of us have experienced that. So we're going to have to deal with it. But it's still only 2-1. And we had a lot of good things today."
"I'm going to think about that one [to name his starting goalie for Game 4.] Got two good goalies. Pretty good choice. Can't lose on either one."
Alex Pietrangelo: "They had a momentum swing, and we couldn't see to get it back until halfway through the third. We need more of what we did in the first 10. We'll be OK. It's tough to win when you don't score. We can't leave our goalies out to dry like that. So it's on us now to find a way to get our offense going and find a way to score some goals."
Phil Kessel and Carl Hagelin each had a goal and an assist to help the Pittsburgh Penguins to a 4-2 win against the Tampa Bay Lightning in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Final at Amalie Arena on Wednesday. Pittsburgh leads the best-of-7 series 2-1. Game 4 is in Tampa on Friday.
After Hagelin opened the scoring late in the second period, Kessel scored his seventh goal of the postseason at 5:16 of the third to give the Penguins a 2-0 lead. Nick Bonino won a puck battle against Lightning forward Valtteri Filppula behind the net and passed it to Kessel, who beat goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy high to the glove side from close range.
Sidney Crosby and Chris Kunitz also scored for the Penguins in the third period, and rookie Matt Murray made 26 saves for his ninth win in 12 starts in the 2016 Stanley Cup Playoffs. Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat scored for the Lightning, who have lost consecutive games for the first time in the postseason. Vasilevskiy made 44 saves.
Johnson answered for the Lightning 14 seconds after Kessel scored to cut the gap to 2-1. Nikita Kucherov carried the puck into the offensive zone and tied up Penguins defensemen Brian Dumoulin and Kris Letang, allowing Johnson to streak behind him uncovered with a clear path to the net for a backhand past Murray.
Crosby gave the Penguins a 3-1 lead at 10:50 with his second goal in the past two games and fifth of the playoffs. With Pittsburgh on a 4-on-3 power play, Evgeni Malkin found Crosby open at the right faceoff dot for a one-timer past Vasilevskiy. Kunitz made it 4-1 with an unassisted goal at 13:12, and Palat scored his fourth goal of the playoffs with 1:44 left.
Hagelin opened the scoring with 10 seconds remaining in the second. Lightning forward Jonathan Drouin turned over the puck in the Pittsburgh zone, allowing the Penguins to break out on an odd-man rush. Kessel carried the puck into the Lightning zone and wristed a shot that Vasilevskiy saved but couldn’t control, and Hagelin shot it into the open net for his fifth goal of the playoffs.
Pittsburgh outshot Tampa Bay 38-16 in the second and third periods; the Lightning had a 12-10 advantage in the first. With the shot disparity what it was, Murray didn’t need to be great for the Penguins, but he made some big saves in the first period to keep it scoreless. He made a save on a Brian Boyle wrist shot at close range at 4:13 of the third period, then denied J.T. Brown on the rebound.
Pens Quotes
Mike Sullivan: “They are a responsible line on both ends. [Bonino and Hagelin] obviously kill penalties and have great awareness defensively. I think [Kessel’s] game has come a long way away from the puck. …They are a line that we have a comfort level with.”
Sidney Crosby: “We were in a 4-on-3 with a one-timer on either side. [Malkin] was in a good spot to shoot too – in the middle of the ice. He put a perfect pass there that I could shoot.”
Carl Hagelin: “Obviously, we had a really strong second period, and we deserved to score a couple goals. But [Vasilevskiy] played great. Anytime you can score 10 seconds before the period is over, it is definitely a momentum boost for your team.”
Matt Murray: “I just try to do my job. My job is to stop the puck, keep the puck out of the net. I always have faith that [our] team is going to put the puck in the other net because of the roster we have here. We have so much skill offensively that I don’t worry about whether or not we are scoring or whether guys are getting frustrated or not.”
Bolts Quotes
Jon Cooper: “We have been to three playoffs together, and we have been in every different situation. Up two, down two, up 2-1, down 2-1, so it’s nothing we haven’t seen before.”
Tyler Johnson: “You have to give them credit. They play hard, they use each other very well. I thought we had a great first period. We were all over them, but that second period, we had a little bit of a let down, and that just can’t happen.”
Anton Stralman: “I think we started off really good, with a nice push in the beginning. We almost weathered the storm in the second, but they got a late goal, and that was a big boost for them. We're not executing well, and they are taking advantage. They are getting a lot of zone time, and it's tough to defend a good offensive team like that."
