Friday, 4 a.m.
The toe twitched. The patient moaned.
There is life.
Faced with elimination, the Tampa Bay Lightning found another measure of stubbornness Thursday night. They went into Toronto and beat the Maple Leafs, 4-2, to force a game six.
The Bolts still trail 3-2 in the series, but the team feels it has outplayed Toronto for three straight games (it blew two leads and lost in overtime in Game Three and Game Four).
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That's the thing about this Lighting team -- it's hard to kill.
"I said this at the beginning of the series -- don’t bet against the guys," Lightning Coach Jon Cooper said. "I’m not saying we won the series. We won one game. We have so far to go. But to come into this environment and to play the way we did....we’re going back to the rink."
The Bolts got a strong night from goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy, who played waist-deep in questions about his effort. He stopped 28 of 30 shots Thursday night, including a breakaway against Mitch Marner in the third period.
"They dug their heels in tonight," Cooper said. "The goalie really dug his heals in tonight. His name has come up a lot for various reasons the last couple of days. I think he proved he can handle the high shots.
The Bolts fell behind 1-0, but Anthony Cirelli scored 28 second later to tie the game. The Bolts got goals from unexpected sources -- Mikey Eyssimont scored his second goal as a Bolt and Nick Paul, who broke a 30-game goalless streak (four of them in the playoffs). Alex Killorn scored an empty netter.
The series now turns to Tampa's Amalie Arena for Saturday's game. The start time has not been announced.
