In the 2022 NHL Stanley Cup Final, Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the formidable Colorado Avalanche.
In a 3-2 win in Game 5 on Friday night at Ball Arena, the Lightning outclassed Colorado with greater grit, crowded the neutral zone, and once again depended on goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy’s lightning-quick reflexes to offset Colorado’s greater speed.
To send the series back to Tampa and give the Lightning a chance to tie it in Game 6 on Sunday night and make history in the NHL, coach Jon Cooper contained Colorado Avalanche’s captain Gabriel Landeskog and Mikko Rantanen.
With 2:38 left in the game, Colorado was penalized for having quite so many men on the ice as they attempted to level the score after Ondrej Palat broke the 2-2 tie with a shot through Darcy Kuemper’s legs with 6:22 left in the third period.
In Game 5, the referees’ calls and breaks simply didn’t favour Colorado. Neither did the calls as the Lightning threw the Avalanche off-balance, puck in hand or not.
When Colorado Avalanche player Cale Makar was called for tripping during a 4-on-4 skate in the second period, Tampa Bay switched to four forwards.
Moments later, Nikita Kucherov took advantage by scoring the Lightning’s second goal in just 17 opportunities during the game’s power play.
Early in the third quarter, Makar made up for it with a goal to knot the score at two.
Colorado Avalanche centre Nazim Kadri protested about the poor ice before scoring the game-winning goal in Game 4, but the Lightning are now in a position to even the series this weekend in Florida.
After that thrilling game, Makar said that the Avalanche were still in it for the long haul and insisted that a fourth victory over the defending champions in the NHL would be the trickiest to achieve.
The Lightning kept alive their chances of becoming the first club to win three straight NHL Stanley Cups in the salary cap era by competing in their 67th playoff series since the first round of the 2020 playoffs.
