With less than a minute to go in the third period of game three, Nikita Kucherov snuck a beautiful backhand pass to Ondrej Palat just past Mika Zibanejad, and Palat buried a shot just inside the post on Igor Shesterkin's glove side to give the Lightning a 3-2 win and an eventual victory to get back in the series.
Zibanejad was asked about the goal after the game, but before the question was finished, Chris Kreider tapped his teammate on the elbow to handle the question himself, where he took the blame for the game-winner.
"I gotta get the puck out. I'm puck-watching," Kreider said. "I should have came and planted instead of filtering a little bit too far back to the net. The puck goes over my head, I take a swing at it, it was probably almost a high sticking penalty."
Kreider's near high stick came after a save by Shesterkin, and the deflection of Shesterkin's leg pad save came out towards Kreider, who fanned on the attempt to clear it out. Instead, the puck bounced to Tampa's Erik Cernak at the blue line, and Kreider followed him out to the point, leaving Zibanejad between Kucherov and Palat.
Kredier said if he had stayed back, there would have been no lane for Kucherov to find Palat, and perhaps game three goes to overtime, and perhaps the Rangers come away with a commanding 3-0 series lead.
"If I get to my position and throw the brakes on, then everyone was accounted for," Kreider said. "I didn't need to kind of over-backcheck and take myself that close to the paint. If I'm planted, it comes right to me, put the puck on the ice and get it out."
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