Tonight at 8 p.m. ET, the Tampa Bay Lightning and New York Rangers face-off for Game 5 of their best-of-seven Eastern Conference Final series live from Madison Square Garden in New York City as part of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
It's a pivotal swing game as Tampa Bay looks to win a road game to go up 3-2 in the series before it swings back to Florida while New York hopes to shore up home-ice after avoiding a 3-1 series deficit last time out.
In the first two games at Madison Square Garden, the Rangers defeated the Lightning 2-1 in Game 1 and Tampa Bay routed New York 6-2 in Game 2. When the series shifted to Florida, the Bolts won Game 3 via a 6-5 overtime win and then it was the Blueshirts turns to blow out their adversaries with a 5-1 win in Game 4.
Game 5 can be live streamed for free here.
Rick Nash finally broke through for New York in Game 4, notching two goals while Martin St. Louis also found the twine for the first time this postseason to help the team even up the series. Chris Kreider and Keith Yandle also scored for the Rangers.
Steven Stamkos lit the lamp for the sixth time this postseason in the loss for Tampa Bay.
After getting blown out on home-ice, the Lightning is hopeful to bounce back.
"Well, if you think about the history of our team since I guess our band has been together for the last two years, we've had pretty good responses after we've lost games," coach Jon Cooper said via NHL.com. "I'm not sitting here saying we're playing poorly, because I don't think we're playing poorly. Do we have some things we have to tighten up? Yes. But give the Rangers credit. They're making us do things that are probably a little outside of our comfort zone."
The Rangers, meanwhile, are glad not to be down 3-1 for the second consecutive series after bouncing back against the Washington Capitals to win in seven games.
"Our overall situation is a little bit better," Rangers coach Alain Vigneault told NHL.com. "I mean, we knew that [Friday] was a very important game. We've evened the series out. Best-of-3 now, and we have home-ice advantage. But it's been a really tough series. Every game has been different. First game was tight-checking. Second game, special-team units took over. Third game, it was back-and-forth where there's tons of open ice. And [Friday] night from our standpoint, we had a really solid first period. They got momentum in the second and some looks, and our goaltender stood tall."
Derek Stepan has paced New York with 12 points this postseason off of five goals and seven assists while Chris Kreider has a team-high seven tallies and Derick Brassard (6-5--11) and Nash (4-6--10) have also been prodcuctive this spring.
Tyler Johnson has led the Lightning in the playoffs with 18 points off of an NHL-best 12 goals and six assists while his linemates Nikita Kucherov (7-9--16) and Ondrej Palat (6-7--13) -- collectively known as the Triplets Line -- has been a driving force. Alex Killorn and Stamkos each have 15 points off of six markers and nine helpes.
In between the pipes, Tampa Bay turns to Ben Bishop, who has given up five goals in each of the last two games. Overall, Bishop is 10-7 in these playoffs with a 2.21 goals-against average and a .918 save percentage.
New York counters with Henrik Lundqvist in the blue paint and he bounced back nicely in Game 4 after allowing six goals in back-to-back contests in Games 2 and 3. Lundqvist is 10-6 in the postseason with a 2.05 GAA and a .930 save percentage.
The Lightning and Rangers each seek a 3-2 series lead when the puck drops on Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final live tonight from Madison Square Garden in New York City as part of the 2015 Stanley Cup playoffs.
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