Ryan Callahan scored after only 27 seconds as the Tampa Bay Lightning held off a furious Pittsburgh rally for a 4-3 victory on Friday to level their NHL playoff series.
The Lightning equalized the best-of-seven Eastern Conference final 2-2, with Game 5 at Pittsburgh today and Game 6 in Tampa on Tuesday.
The winner will face the Western Conference champion, either the San Jose Sharks or St Louis Blues, in the Stanley Cup Finals.
Photo: Kim Klement - USA TODAY
“We played the first two periods really well,” Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman said after the game. “A little nerve wracking there in the third period, but it doesn’t matter how, we got it done and we’re moving on.”
Down 4-0 through two periods, the Penguins replaced goaltender Matt Murray, the team’s playoff stalwart through two rounds, with Marc-Andre Fleury, who had not played since March due to a concussion.
“He was solid. He was moving good. He made some good saves,” Penguins coach Mike Sullivan said of Fleury, who made seven saves. “We’re down four goals. When you make a change like that, sometimes it has an impact on your team.”
While Fleury silenced the Lightning, the visiting Penguins rallied to throw a scare into Tampa Bay.
Pittsburgh snapped the shutout streak 78 seconds into the third period when Phil Kessel scored his eighth goal of the post-season.
Russian winger Evgeni Malkin found the net with 8 minutes, 47 seconds remaining in regulation to lift Pittsburgh within 4-2 and Chris Kunitz stuffed in a rebound shot just 1 minute, 55 seconds later.
The Penguins removed Fleury in the final 90 seconds for an extra attacker in a bid to net the equalizer, but could not complete the comeback bid.
“It’s hard to chase a four-goal deficit,” Sullivan said. “They were the more determined team the first half of the game. We made a run at them in the third period, but there was just not enough time.”
Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 35 saves, 13 of them in the hectic last period.
“Playing a little too safe in the last few minutes,” Lightning defenseman Jason Garrison said. “They have lines that can roll and they showed it. They aren’t going to sit back. They have a lot of firepower. When we get a lead we have to keep it.”
Coming off a 4-2 home-ice thumping by Pittsburgh in Game 3, Tampa Bay took the Game 4 lead only 27 seconds into contest as 31-year-old right wing Ryan Callahan netted the second-fastest goal in Lightning playoff history.
Andrej Sustr, a Czech defenseman, gave the Lightning a 2-0 lead with 5:32 remaining in the opening period.
Jonathan Drouin boosted Tampa Bay’s lead to 3-0 on a power-play goal with 5:22 remaining in the second period, adding to the Penguins’ woes after they failed on two extra-man chances of their own earlier in the middle period.
Pittsburgh defenseman Kris Letang picked up a double-minor penalty and Drouin struck with one minute remaining in the second penalty to dim the Penguins’ comeback hopes.
Tyler Johnson added his sixth goal of the playoffs for the Lightning just 3:10 later to put Tampa Bay ahead 4-0 entering the third period.
Revelations of positive doping tests for nearly two dozen Chinese swimmers that went unpunished sparked an intense flurry of accusations and legal threats between the World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) and the head of the US drug-fighting organization, who has long been one of WADA’s fiercest critics. WADA on Saturday said it was turning to legal counsel to address a statement released by US Anti-Doping Agency (USADA) CEO Travis Tygart, who said WADA and anti-doping authorities in China swept positive tests “under the carpet by failing to fairly and evenly follow the global rules that apply to everyone else in the world.” The
Taiwanese judoka Yang Yung-wei on Saturday won silver in the men’s under-60kg category at the Asian Judo Championships in Hong Kong. Nicknamed the “judo heartthrob” in Taiwan, the Olympic silver-medalist missed out on his first Asian Championships gold when he lost to Japanese judoka Taiki Nakamura in the finals. Yang defeated three opponents on Saturday to reach the final after receiving a bye through the round of 32. He first topped Laotian Soukphaxay Sithisane in the round of 16 with two seoi nage (over-the-shoulder throws), then ousted Indian Vijay Kumar Yadav in the quarter-finals with his signature ude hishigi sankaku gatame (triangular armlock). He
RALLY: It was only the second time the Taiwanese has partnered with Kudermetova, and the match seemed tight until they won seven points in a row to take the last set 10-2 Taiwan’s Chan Hao-ching and Russia’s Veronika Kudermetova on Sunday won the Porsche Tennis Grand Prix women’s doubles final in Stuttgart, Germany. The pair defeated Norway’s Ulrikke Eikeri and Estonia’s Ingrid Neel 4-6, 6-3, 10-2 in a tightly contested match at the WTA 500 tournament. Chan and Kudermetova fell 4-6 in the first set after having their serve broken three times, although they played increasingly well. They fought back in the second set and managed to break their opponents’ serve in the eighth game to triumph 6-3. In the tiebreaker, Chan and Kudermetova took a 3-0 lead before their opponents clawed back two points, but
Taiwanese gymnast Lee Chih-kai failed to secure an Olympic berth in the pommel horse following a second-place finish at the last qualifier in Doha on Friday, a performance that Lee and his coach called “unconvincing.” The Tokyo Olympics silver medalist finished runner-up in the final after scoring 6.6 for degree of difficulty and 8.800 for execution for a combined score of 15.400. That was just 0.100 short of Jordan’s Ahmad Abu Al Soud, who had qualified for the event in Paris before the Apparatus World Cup series in Qatar’s capital. After missing the final rounds in the first two of four qualifier