Lightning rediscover swagger in Game 5 win against Capitals

TAMPA --With his ears ringing from the crowd's deafening cheers, Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper looked up and down his bench and flashed a smile.
Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final against the Washington Capitals on Saturday was just 19 seconds old and already Tampa Bay had a 1-0 lead on a goal by forward Cedric Paquette. As his players celebrated, Cooper noticed qualities in his team that had been absent in the first four games of this series.
Swagger. Confidence. Belief.

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"Everybody is into it," Cooper said. "At puck drop like that, everybody is fired up about the game, and then the roof came off when we scored that first goal. You could see our team got a little taller on the bench."
It was a dream start for the Lightning, who built a 3-0 lead, then held on for a 3-2 victory to take a 3-2 lead in the best-of-7 series. Tampa Bay can advance to the Stanley Cup Final by defeating the Capitals in Game 6 at Washington on Monday (8 p.m. ET; NBCSN, CBC, SN1, TVAS).
But Cooper admitted it won't be easy. Getting the third win was difficult enough, getting the fourth will be even harder.

The goals by Paquette and Ondrej Palat (9:04) had the 19,092 at Amalie Arena giddy at how the Lightning came out in the first period. And when Ryan Callahan scored just 33 seconds into the second for a 3-0 lead, it capped off the best stint of hockey Tampa Bay had played in the series.
The problem was they couldn't maintain it.
After outshooting Washington 13-4 in the first period, Tampa Bay took its foot off the gas pedal for the final 39:27 and almost paid the price. The Capitals outshot the Lightning 26-9 over the remaining two periods and closed to 3-2 on goals by Evgeni Kuznetsov at 4:21 of the second and Alex Ovechkin at 18:24 of the third.

Only a point-blank stop on Capitals defenseman John Carlson by Tampa Bay goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy with 10 seconds remaining kept Washington from tying the game.
When the horn sounded, Vasilevskiy could be seen closing his eyes and unleashing a big sigh of relief. On the bench, the grin Cooper had worn in the first minute of the game had returned.
With good reason.
As Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said, there are no extra points in a victory for artistic merit. All that matters is the win.
"There was a little bit of [rope-a-dope] from us at the end," Hedman said. "You know they're going to push. Obviously being down, well, we've been in that situation ourselves. We did enough to get the win. Obviously you want to push more yourself but that's how the games go sometimes."

Hedman senses the momentum has turned in the Lightning's favor. They have won three consecutive games and became the first home team to win in the series.
At the same time, he admits there still are warts in their game.
"There's room for improvement," Hedman said. "We haven't played our best yet. Not for a complete game anyway.
"No, we have to keep it going. That first period was probably our best period of the series. But we only combined for something like nine shots over the next two periods. So we always want to keep pushing the pace like we did in the first. We sat back after Callahan got that goal and good things don't come from that.
"They're a good team, they push back, but I don't think they had their first shot until [6:38) of the third. We did a good job to that point but we obviously need to have the same effort over a full 60 minutes that we did in the first."

For Lightning captain Steven Stamkos, there were many positives. They held Ovechkin without a shot until there was 3:38 left in the third period, and they received much-needed secondary scoring from fourth-liners Paquette and Callahan.
But there was one aspect of Tampa Bay's game that proved to be a deciding factor.
"No penalties," Stamkos said, playfully winking as he was walking out of the arena. "When you do that you have a great chance to win."
The Lightning did just that.
And now they are just one victory away from winning this series, too.