Coming into Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Final on Friday evening, most people assumed the series was effectively over. Up 3-1 in, the Colorado Avalanche would surely ice it away at home. The Tampa Bay Lightning, however, are two-time defending champions, and they had other plans, taking a 3-2 win in the game to send the series back to Tampa for a sixth game.
Jan Ruuta gave the Lightning the lead in the first period only for Valeri Nicushkin to even up the contest early in the second period. The visitors again took the lead after 8:10 of the second when Nikita Kucherov found the net on a power play. The hosts got even in the third when Cale Makar scored the equalized, but Tampa wasn’t going to go away that easily and got an 11th playoff goal from Ondrej Palat after 13:38 of the third period proved to be the difference-maker. Colorado outshot their visitors and laid out more hits, but in the end, the only stat that mattered- the score- went the way of Tampa and that means they will get a chance to go back home and extend their series for a seventh game.
