Penguins: HBK Line Dominates, Take Series Lead

The Pittsburgh Penguins defeated the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 in Game 3 of the Eastern Conference Finals to take a 2-1 series lead.

After all of the clothing policy talk leading up to Game 3, the Penguins delivered a thorough undressing of the Lightning in the second and third periods to claim a 4-2 victory, taking the series lead and regaining home ice advantage. The two clubs played fairly toe-to-toe in a scoreless first period, but in the second the Pens began to show their dominance on the night, nearly doubling the Lightning in shots on goal, winning the faceoff battle and finding loose pucks with a drastically disproportionate frequency.

By the time the final horn sounded, it wasn’t the Penguins fans’ jerseys in the stands that were the story of the night, but rather the businesslike effort to simply wear down Tampa by a team that now appears to have found its stride in this series after coming out flat in Game 1.

In a familiar theme this postseason, the HBK line came through with Phil Kessel and Carl Hagelin providing much of the firepower for the Penguins. Kessel skated like a man on a mission throughout the game, at one point having nearly half as many scoring chances to his credit as the entire Tampa lineup.

Putting pucks on net at every opportunity made it seem a matter of when, not if, Pittsburgh would break the scoreless tie – a premonition that ultimately rang true. With under a minute to go in the second, Kessel created an odd man rush off of a Lightning turnover and was stopped by Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, but Hagelin was waiting on the doorstep to promptly bury the rebound and give the Pens a 1-0 lead.