Alex Killorn on Thursday scored the go-ahead goal halfway through the third period and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 36 shots as the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Washington Capitals 4-2 to level the Eastern Conference Finals at 2-2.
Killorn scored at 11 minutes, 57 seconds of the third period, taking a pass from teammate Ondrej Palat and then slipping a backhand through the legs of Washington goaltender Braden Holtby to break a 2-2 tie.
“Palat made a great play to me at the front of the net, and I put it on my backhand and caught him five hole,” said Killorn, who snapped a 10-game scoreless drought.
Tampa Bay regained home ice advantage in the series, but it might not matter, as the victory at the Capital One Arena in Washington followed a familiar pattern.
The road team has now won all four games in the series. The Lightning will try to break that mold when they host Game 5 today.
“It’s pretty bizarre,” Tampa forward Steven Stamkos said. “We’ve got to find a way to win one at home.”
Stamkos, Brayden Point and Anthony Cirelli also scored for the Lightning, who had bounced back in Game 3, winning 4-2.
Stamkos now has six goals and 10 points in a seven-game point streak.
Vasilevskiy made 36 saves — for the second consecutive game — showing that reports of the Tampa Bay Lightning’s demise had been premature.
“When you don’t have your A game, you need your goalie to have his A game, and he sure did,” Tampa coach Jon Cooper said.
Evgeny Kuznetsov, with his 10th of the post-season, and Dmitry Orlov scored for Washington, who dropped to 3-5 on home ice in the playoffs.
Wins are so hard to come by for the Capitals in their own building that Kuznetsov said after Game 2 he had “just been dreaming to play all games on the road ... I really like to be on the road.”
Capitals coach Barry Trotz said he is confident his players would rebound in Florida.
“Sometimes the road you get on is not always straight,” Trotz said. “I can’t say we didn’t play well. I thought we came out with a good start and got the first goal. This was another test for this group. The second and third period we were fine. We were dictating play and we did a lot of good things, we just didn’t get the result we wanted. We are comfortable going on the road, and our intention is to go to Tampa and win.”
One piece of good news for Washington was the return of forward Nicklas Backstrom, who missed the previous four games with a hand injury.
Backstrom had 21 goals and 50 assists in the regular season.
On Thursday he finished with no points and four shots on goal.
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