The Tampa Bay Lightning eliminated the Boston Bruins in two overtimes in Game five to advance to the Eastern Conference Finals at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto on Monday.
After a scoreless first period, the Lightning put up the first goal 4:21 into the second when Ondrej Palat tipped-in the puck off of a slap shot from Kevin Shattenkirk. Palat scored a goal in his fourth consecutive game.
The Bruins were not going to make it easy for the Lightning. Minutes later on a power-play opportunity, David Pastrnak tied it up 1-1 with a one-timer from the left circle.
The game was tied for the majority of the third period. At 12:03 in the third Anthony Cirelli deflected the puck off of a shot from Victor Hedman to regain the lead for Tampa Bay.
The Bruins battled to the very end and David Krejci tied the game 3-3 to push it to overtime with three minutes left.
After a hard fought first overtime period, the game was still tied until Hedman scored the game winning goal to eliminate the Bruins.
“Obviously, a great feeling. We battled really hard today,” Hedman said. “We’re very happy, as a group, to move to the conference final.”
The Lightning will advance to the Conference Final for the fourth time in the past six years. However, they only made it to the Stanley Cup Final once in those four years.
The Bruins were trying to rebound after losing to the St. Louis Blues in Game seven of the Stanley Cup Final last year will now go home empty handed.
“It’s a very disappointing finish. We had a great year,” Bruins forward Brad Marchand said. “We expected better out of this year. We thought we had a chance. I mean, Tampa’s a great team, don’t get me wrong. I don’t want to take anything away from them. The way things were rolling throughout the season, we thought we were going to go all the way. … We walk away without anything to show for it. So it’s tough.”
The Lightning will now head to Edmonton as they wait to see if they will face the Philadelphia Flyers or the New York Islanders in the Stanley Cup Eastern Conference Finals.
