A two-goal night for Adam Erne led the way as the Tampa Bay Lightning continue to chase the final Eastern Conference wild card spot with a 6-3 win on Sunday night at Amalie Arena. With the win over the Dallas Stars, Tampa Bay now finds themselves three points behind the Ottawa Senators for the final postseason nod. Ottawa is the new team the Bolts are chasing as the Boston Bruins beat the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 earlier Sunday afternoon to leap the Senators for a top three slot in the division.
The Bolts wasted little time in lighting up the scoreboard in front of a sold out Amalie Arena as Adam Erne raced around the defense for a wraparound goal past Kari Lehtonen for the first tally of the game.
With Tampa Bay leading 1-0, Dallas struck back in the second period with a pair of scores to take the lead 2-1. Gemel Smith and Jason Spezza notched the scores past Andrei Vasilevskiy to give the struggling Stars a lead late into the second period, but the Bolts would not go into the intermission trailing. A hard working shift for the Bolts in the final seconds of the second period led to a game-tying goal by Braydon Coburn heading into the intermission tied at two goals apiece.
The third period saw a rejuvenated Bolts team throwing whatever they could in front of Lehtonen to nab a home win before a key three game road trip coming up this week. Brayden Point parked himself in front of the Stars’ goaltender and deposited a rebound past him for a 3-2 Tampa Bay lead. Ondrej Palat would add to the Bolts’ lead late in the third period with a power play goal to make it 4-2, and Erne added his second goal of the game going five-hole to make it 5-2 Tampa Bay. The win by the Bolts comes a day after a disappointing overtime loss to the Montreal Canadiens.
Palat finished the game with a goal and a pair of assists. Peter Budaj finished with 23 saves.
The Bolts will now head to Boston for a very large match up against the Bruins on Tuesday night. You can hear the game on 970AM WFLA beginning at 6:30pm with the pre-game, and a faceoff around 7:00pm.
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