Tampa Bay tops Avs, 3-2, to extend Stanley Cup

Series-clinching games in general and Stanley Cup Final-clinching games in particular are always tough and generally heart-stopping.

The Avalanche experienced that cauldron of emotion Friday night at Ball Arena. One win from its first championship in 21 years, the Avalanche couldn’t close out the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning, falling 3-2 in Game 5 on winger Ondrej Palat’s goal with 6:22 remaining.

The Avs lead the series 3-2 and head back to Tampa Bay for Game 6 on Sunday.

“It’s not supposed to be easy and it’s not going to be easy and we knew that coming into (the playoffs) and coming into (Friday),” Avs captain Gabe Landeskog said.

The Avs can take solace in their 8-1 road record in the playoffs, but this is the Lightning it is facing, the two-time champion Lightning, the Andrei Vasilevskiy-in-goal Lightning, the rallied-in-two-series-already-this-postseason Lightning.

The Avalanche, which never led, dropped to 7-3 at home in the playoffs and were denied a chance to finish 16-3 in the postseason, which would have been the best record by a Cup winner since Edmonton went 16-2 in 1988.

Tampa Bay got goals from defenseman Jan Rutta (15:23 of the first period) and winger Nikita Kucherov (8:10 of the second) that sandwiched a marker by the Avs’ Valeri Nichushkin (5:07 of the second). Defenseman Cale Makar tied it for the Avs with 17:29 remaining.

Palat’s winner came after a nifty bit of perimeter passing by the Lightning.

“A little bit (better) communication there probably solves that,” Avs coach Jared Bednar said.

The Avs’ chances were compromised when they were called for too many men on the ice with 2:38 remaining, putting Tampa Bay on the power play for two minutes. With the building at a fever pitch, chanting, “We want the Cup!” and “Let’s go Avs!” there was little to cheer about in the first period.

The Avalanche continued to do expert work on the penalty kill as Tampa Bay’s two opening-period chances were unsuccessful.

“A little bit of a slow start,” Bednar said. “It doesn’t help when you’re killing penalties right off the bat and gave their top guys a little bit of momentum and it took us awhile to find it.”

For the second consecutive game, Tampa Bay scored first and like the last goal Darcy Kuemper allowed in Game 4, it was a shot he should have stopped. Rutta, he of two goals in 47 career playoff games, skated down the wing and his slap shot snuck through the gap between Kuemper’s body and glove hand for a 1-0 lead.

“It was a little bit of a knuckler,” said Kuemper, who made 26 saves.

Said Bednar: “I would like to see him get the first one, obviously. Besides that, I thought he battled hard.”

The Avalanche tied it by benefiting from a suspect icing call on the Lightning. MacKinnon won the draw back to Makar, whose shot was awkwardly saved by Vasilevskiy, but Nichushkin, with inside position on Nick Paul, was right at the edge of the crease to back-hand the rebound for his ninth goal of the postseason.

It wasn’t tied for long.

Already skating 4-on-4, Makar was whistled for a tripping penalty below his goal-line and the beleaguered Lightning power play finally cashed in on Kucherov’s slap shot from the center point at 8:10 of the second. Before that goal, the Lightning were 1 of 17 on the power play in the series.

The Avalanche squandered two prime chances late in the second period when center Nazem Kadri and defenseman Bo Byram were stopped.

“We had a couple of chances at the end of the second period when we broke in on the rush and just couldn’t come up with one,” Bednar said.

The Lightning led 2-1 entering the third period for the second consecutive game, but that lead was short-lived.

Makar’s shot was saved by Vasilevskiy, but the rebound deflected off defenseman Erik Cernak’s skate and through Vasilevskiy’s legs. The Avs would gladly accept that bit of major luck.

The Avalanche had 37 shots on goal but were outplayed on special teams for the first time in the series.

“Listen, we would have loved to finish it off, but it’s a seven-game series,” Landeskog said. “The sun is going to go up again tomorrow and we’ll be right back at it.”

Said Kuemper: “We won there the last game (in Tampa Bay) so we have to go there and play our game. We would have taken a 3-2 series lead any day so we’re in a good spot.”

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