EDMONTON — They are on the verge of piercing the NHL bubble.
Kevin Shattenkirk’s goal 6:34 into overtime gave Tampa Bay a thrilling 5-4 victory over the Dallas Stars on Friday and left the Lightning one win away from lifting the Stanley Cup.
They could finish the job as soon as Saturday night with Game 5 coming on the back end of a back-to-back.
Friday’s game was a back-and-forth nail-biter played at blinding speed. Shattenkirk froze the clock with Tampa’s third power-play goal of the night after Yanni Gourde won a faceoff and Victor Hedman slid the puck across to him.
With so much riding on the outcome, both teams showed up with their best and Tampa spent a good chunk of the first period in the offensive zone. But the Lightning also fell behind 2-0 because two of the first three shots Andrei Vasilevskiy got behind him.
John Klingberg continued his strong play in this Stanley Cup Final and followed his own rebound on the rush to beat him at 7:17. Then Joe Pavelski scored his first of two on the night with a nice shot under Vasilevskiy’s blocker off the rush at 18:28.
Brayden Point started swinging things back in Tampa’s favour, finishing a forehand-backhand deke 59 seconds later. That came off a perfectly executed breakout by Shattenkirk and Ondrej Palat to send Point in alone.
He then tied it 2-2 early in the second period by batting a knuckling puck out of midair on the power play. That gave Point 13 goals and 30 points in these playoffs.
The Stars weren’t going away, though, and Corey Perry made it 3-2 by driving to the goal and benefitting from a determined effort by linemate Tyler Seguin. He battled Mikhail Sergachev and got the puck into the crease behind Vasileskiy with a great second effort.
Tampa tied this edge-of-your-seat affair on the power play when Yanni Gourde buried a good bounce off Esa Lindell’s skate and then Alex Killorn made it 4-3 at 6:41 of the third period with a spinning shot that ramped off Lindell’s stick and struck iron on the way in.
Pavelski found an answer five minutes later on a shot that Vasikevskiy stopped, only to have it bank off Shattenkirk and in — setting the stage for the first overtime of this championship series.
Tampa has now won six overtime games during this playoff run.
