Tampa Bay Lightning repeats history, levels series against Pittsburgh Penguins –NHL Play-offs Update
After Martin St. Louis broke three of his teeth in game one on Wednesday, he along with the rest of the Tampa Bay Lightning did not need any more motivation to win the next matchup against the Penguins. The Lightning struck down hard on the Penguins defeating
them by 5-1 in game two of the Eastern Conference Quarterfinals on Friday at the CONSOL Energy Center in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.
St. Louis disagreed with the idea of him trying to take revenge on the Penguins because their defenceman, Zbynek Michalek, accidently broke his stick when he snapped it across his face.
"My motivation is we were down 1-0", St. Louis said. "It's not because I lose teeth".
He heated up in game one after the authorities did not penalise Michalek for the hit which was later confirmed to be unintentional causing him to cool down.
Tampa Bay repeated history when they won the second match of the series. For two consecutive quarterfinals, the Lightning rebound after losing game one to take the series entering into the second round.
As thought before, this competition would be based on which goalie performs better and it turned out to be exactly that.
Dwayne Roloson of Lightning performed a near shutout by blocking 35 attempts.
Marc-Andre Fleury, who locked down them down in the previous match, only managed to reject 16 shots out of a total 20.
"I think we have to understand what the problem and the situation is and we didn't execute very well on the power play tonight", Pittsburgh’s coach, Dan Bylsma, said about his team wasting over 20 minutes of penalty time. "We have to be much better to think
we're going to have a chance to have success".
Within 17 minutes of the first period, Tampa Bay was ahead 3-0 giving them more than enough time to easily extend and maintain their precious lead. Eric Brewer, Vincent Lecavalier and Nate Thompson scored in succession.
Lightning defenceman, Eric Brewer, scored the opener and his first post-season goal since 2003.
Lecavalier capitalised on a Penguins sponsored power play opportunity while Thompson finalised the period, scoring his first ever play-off goal in his five years as a professional hockey player.
Penguins’ right winger, Craig Adams, tried to put a stop to Tampa Bay’s shooting spree when he put his team on the board midway through the second but it was not enough to slow the thundering Bolts down. Martin St. Louis gave Simon Gagne his third assist
of the night during a late power play with 14 seconds remaining on the clock.
By the time both teams were entering the final 20 minutes, Pittsburgh was down 4-1, which at this stage is a difficult task to overcome.
Mattias Ohlund put in another one for Tampa Bay unassisted on an empty net with two minutes remaining and that to shorthanded.
Lightning seems excited to return home after evening out the series 1-1 in Pittsburgh. Both teams face off in game three on Monday.
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