NHL Game Summary - Detroit at Tampa Bay
Tampa, FL (SportsNetwork.com) - Despite dominating the Red Wings in Game 1, the Lightning were denied a win. Ben Bishop made sure that was not the case in Game 2.
Bishop backed a solid offensive effort with 23 saves and Tampa Bay evened this best-of-seven Eastern Conference quarterfinal series with a 5-1 win over Detroit on Saturday.
Tyler Johnson scored twice, Valtteri Filppula tallied a goal and an assist and Alex Killorn and Andrej Sustr each lit the lamp for the Lightning, who snapped a six-game postseason skid with their first win since Game 6 of the Eastern Conference final against the Boston Bruins on May 25, 2011.
"I just think we played very similar to what we did the other night," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "I think we've played two pretty solid games."
Tomas Tatar supplied Detroit's lone goal and Petr Mrazek, who made 44 saves in the series opener, allowed four goals on 18 shots in 40 minutes of play. Jimmy Howard gave up one goal on 12 shots in relief.
"Overall we played a better game today than we did the first one," Red Wings captain Henrik Zetterberg said. "Spent more time in their end, they just got the goals today."
The series resumes Tuesday at Joe Louis Arena in Detroit for Game 3.
The Lightning put the game out of reach with three goals during the second period.
Ryan Callahan's feed from the left side deflected off a skate and bounced to Killorn, who was unable to get enough on a backhander in front. He settled the puck down and tucked it in at the side of the net for a 2-0 game at 7:56.
Sustr gave the Lightning a 3-0 lead with 5:12 left in the second. Filppula took a hard hit along the left-wing boards, but recovered to send a cross-ice feed to Sustr, who jumped in on the rush and one-timed the puck over Mrazek's glove.
Johnson broke in on a breakaway after Detroit defenseman Danny DeKeyser fell down at the blue line and the speedy forward finished the sequence off with a high wrister past Mrazek's blocker for a 4-0 game.
In the third, Kyle Quincey's slap shot from just inside the blue line caromed off a defender and straight to Tatar, who tipped the puck in from the side of the net to put Detroit on the board at 5:49.
Filppula skated through three defenders, fired a shot from the left circle and banged home the rebound against his former team to account for the final score with 4:34 remaining.
The tone was set early after Killorn hit Red Wings star Pavel Datsyuk late and a scrum ensued. Tampa Bay received a power play out of it and quickly converted.
"We ended up getting a goal soon after that," Cooper said. "I look at it as two teams competing hard that want to win."
Nikita Nesterov's shot from the high slot rang off the post, but Johnson moved in from the right circle and sent the rebound into the top left corner of the net for the game's first goal at 3:05.
Mrazek came up big 6:30 into the second after he denied Johnson's several attempts at a rebound from atop the goalmouth to keep it a one-goal game.