Lightning Beat Bruins In Game 4 On Dan Girardi Goal In Overtime
The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Boston Bruins 4-3 in Game 4 of their second round playoff series off a Dan Girardi goal in overtime. The Bruins are down 3-1 in the series.
The Bruins had a promising-enough start, establishing a lot of zone time for the first four minutes and change. But once again, the Bruins’ struggles on their defensive zone breakouts burned them as Brayden Point picked off a neutral zone pass, split between Zdeno Chara and Charlie McAvoy, and corralled the rebound off of Tuukka Rask to put the Lightning up 1-0 on the outstanding individual effort.
Later in the opening period, it was the Bruins’ lack of discipline that caught up to them. Tampa capitalized on a tripping penalty by Rick Nash with a Nikita Kucherov slapper that snuck over Rask’s shoulder short-side to put the Bruins in an early 2-0 hole.
It wasn’t until late in the first period that the Bruins awoke from their slumber. David Pastrnak got the B’s on the board with a power play goal at 15:28, batting a high bouncing puck out of the air and into the gaping net to cut the Lightning lead to 2-1. And just 2:04 into the second, Patrice Bergeron got the equalizer after he finished on a give-and-go with Torey Krug on the power play.
The Bruins carried that momentum throughout the second period, out-shooting the Lightning 14-4, but couldn’t pull ahead. It wasn’t until a penalty kill that they found their magic. After Noel Acciari took a hooking penalty that was widely questioned on social media, Brad Marchand took the puck end-to-end and threaded it to the front of the net, where Bergeron tipped it home to put the B’s on top 3-2.
Unfortunately for the Bruins, the officials appeared to miss a holding call against the Lightning right before they scored the tying goal. Steven Stamkos ripped a one-timer from the top of the faceoff circle to tie the game 3-3, and from there they headed to overtime.
Bruins defenseman Torey Krug’s status for Game 5 is in doubt after he appeared to suffer a serious lower body injury in the third period. He did not return to the game and left TD Garden in a walking boot with crutches.
Up Next: The Bruins now need to win three games in a row to win the series. They had back to Tampa for Game 5 on Sunday afternoon at 3 p.m.
