One power-play goal would have ended the Lightning's streak of 16 power plays without scoring. They did more than that, though.
The Lightning scored three times on the power play. They broke through a slump and made the advantage feel like a probable goal once again, all while blowing out the Bruins, 7-1, to take a 2-1 lead in their Eastern Conference semifinal at Toronto's Scotiabank Arena.
Ondrej Palat, having switched to the right side, got the Lighting on the board midway through the first period. About 30 seconds into the power play, he ripped off a one-timer past goaltender Jaroslav Halak.
Palat and Kucherov flipped to the right and left circles, respectively, for the game. Typically, Kucherov plays on the right, befitting his role as right wing, and captain Steven Stamkos plays on the left. Without Stamkos, Palat has been in that spot.
Switching Kucherov to the left side, where he is facing up the ice rather than at the goal, closes him off, which sounds like a bad thing but worked in this case.
Kucherov had to move around more, loops up high in the zone to pick up some momentum. His moving around forces everyone else to as well.
On the second power-play goal, he carried the puck down low in the zone, almost to the goal line wide of the circle, and drew most of the Bruins' attention with him. That created the opportunity to flip the puck back up high to Mikhail Sergachev, who'd pinched in toward the high slot. Sergachev landed the one-timer to put the Lightning up 3-0 just 2:14 into the second period.
The Bruins answered about three minutes later with a power-play goal of their own. Torey Krug set up Brad Marchand at the backdoor post, where he already had scored three times this series.
After that, it was all Lightning. Tampa Bay chased Halak out of the game with four goals on 16 shots through a period and a half. Then they added three on rookie Dan Vladar in his NHL debut.
