Home Ice Disadvantage. Bolts win, Pens lead series 3-2.

Legen...wait for it...DARY!

Hmm...where to begin...
Factors in favor of the Pens winning in 5:  Home Ice
Factors against it:  Horrible PP, awful PK, Roloson is amongst the league leaders in playoff goaltending stats, Bylsma has never won a series at home

Oddly enough, the factors against it seemed to outweigh the idea of home ice.

Sergeant Bob started it off with the National Anthem.  Though it was a beauty as always, I think it's time to bring back our veteran Jeff Jimerson.  The playoffs are no time to mess around with a rookie (who is now 1-2).

The first period was essentially 19 minutes of dominant play by the Penguins and 1 minute that would undo everything and give the Lightning an early stranglehold on the game.  Pittsburgh barely allowed Tampa to get past the red line in the first 5 minutes, and then went on the powerplay after Pavel Kubina got called for interference.  The powerplay actually looked fantastic, getting 4 shots on net, but they couldn't put one past Roloson.  The Pens got another great chance as the Dupuis-Talbot-Conner line cycled the puck beautifully and sent it back to Orpik at the point, who rang a slapshot off of the post.  Things seemed to be coming together for the Penguins before going horribly awry in a one minute span.

Teddy Purcell and Vincent Lecavalier came down the ice on a mind numbing rush where they passed the puck back and forth 6 times before Lecavalier rung a shot off of both posts.  The rebound off the post landed right on Simon Gagne's stick as he threw it into a wide open net for a 1-0 lead.  Less than a minute later, Steven Stamkos tipped a shot into Fleury so that he couldn't control it, and Stamkos picked up the rebound and threw it over Fleury's right pad to give the Lightning a quick and stunning 2 goal lead.  It was Stamkos' first career playoff goal after taking a lot of heat for his performances this series.  After the first, the Pens led in shots and scoring chances, but were shocked by the Lightning.

8 Lightning strikes...I think you can see where I'm going with this.

 The second period featured more Penguins failures and opportunistic Lightning goals.  The Penguins started on a powerplay which did absolutely nothing.  The Lightning ended that PK with St. Louis and Stamkos on the ice, and then Lecavalier coming out of the box.  Such a combination spells trouble, and it did as both defenseman followed Stamkos and St. Louis into a corner and Lecavalier was left all alone in front of the net to put a pass from the corner past Fleury.  Letestu should have been the man on Lecavalier, but he also wandered into the corner for no possible reason that I could see.

The Penguins then received another powerplay, and at this point, their last chance to get back into the game.  Again, the powerplay did nothing, and as the Pens made an errant pass out of the zone, Steve Downie came out of the box and got the puck to Dominic Moore in the Penguins zone.  Moore's shot rebounded out, and a shot from the point landed directly at Simon Gagne's feet, who scored his 2nd of the night.  At this point, Fleury was pulled for Brent Johnson.  Fleury stopped 10 of 14 shots, but received absolutely no help.  Can't blame this one on him.

It didn't take long for the Lightning to beat Johnson as Rupp took a penalty for boarding Ryan Malone.  On the ensuing Lightning powerplay, Stamkos found a rebound in front of the net to score his 2nd of the game and of the series.  The Penguins had another powerplay at the end of the period...but you can guess the result.

Anyone in that bottom row want to play?  Anyone?!?

The Lightning received 2 powerplay chances early in the period, and Pavel Kubina finished both off with goals to give Tampa a touchdown and a 7-0 lead.  But wait a minute, with Pittsburgh being a football town, the touchdown must have sparked something.  Just minutes after Kubina's 2nd powerplay goal of the game, Mike Rupp broke Roloson's shutout by putting in a rebound from Alex Kovalev's shot.  The assist to Kovalev was his 100th career playoff point.  The Penguins weren't done yet though, as Chris Conner scored his first career playoff goal on a beautiful feed from Talbot that left Roloson sprawling in front.

The Lightning weren't done yet though, after the Penguins killed off one of their powerplays, Talbot took a boarding call that resulted in a Dominic Moore powerplay goal on a beautiful cross crease feed from Sean Bergenheim.  Letang proceeded to take a penalty as the goal was being scored to put Tampa right back on the powerplay, but the Penguins killed that one before failing to score on one last powerplay to end the game.

Final Score: 8-2 Lightning
3 Stars:
#3 - Kubina (2g)
#2 - Gagne (2g)
#1 - Stamkos (2g, 1a)

Notes/Thoughts:
- We can stop wondering where Stamkos is now

- First team to score is 5-0 in this series (30-6 in the playoffs this year)

- Pens powerplay was 0 for 6 in the game, and is now 0 for 20 at home and 1 for 25 in the series (4%)

- Pens PK allowed 4 goals on 7 chances in the game.  The PK has only stopped 14 of 22 chances so far (63.6%)

- Fleury let up 4 goals on 14 shots, Johnson let up 4 goals on 11 shots, the Penguins were pretty much awful defensively / on the penalty kill, so don't blame either goalie.

- I said it after last game, I want Tangradi in the lineup.  He made a big difference on the powerplay in Game 5.  Who would I sit?  Probably Conner still, even though he did score today.

- Rupp and Talbot both managed to be +1's in this game, the only plus players for the Penguins.

- Michalek led the team with 26 minutes of ice time.  Letang played only 19 minutes, which is the least we've seen in a while from him.

- I'm starting to think that first line is just a clusterf*ck of players (Neal-Letestu-Kovalev).  Letestu's game has been off since his last injury of the season, and these 3 don't have styles that mesh well together to set each other up.

Game 6 on Monday in Tampa Bay.  Bylsma may have never won a series at home, but he has always clinched the series in the next road game when he's had the chance.  LET'S GO PENS!!!
*Fleury is 5-1 with a 2.46 GAA in his 2nd chance to close a series out.