No Eliminations on Thursday

The Tampa Bay Lightning were only five and a half minutes away from being behind the 8-ball, being down 2-0 in the 3rd period to the Detroit Red Wings, before Tyler Johnson took to the case and carried his team to a remarkable comeback victory.  Instead of being behind the 8-ball, the series is now tied 2-2, and they are now heading back to Tampa.

Johnson scored the 2-1 goal, assisted on the tying goal and then scored the winning goal, making up a top end 4-point night.  Also having a good night was Ondrej Palat, scoring a goal and an assist.  After having a rough 2nd period, Ben Bishop stood tall in the 3rd and kept his side in it and got the win in the end.

Game 5 will go on Saturday, an earlier 4pm MT start in Tampa, where the Lightning could try and find some of that elusive momentum in this series.

Returning home for Game 5 was exactly what the doctor ordered for the Washington Capitals, as they were able to finally muster up some offense against the New York Islanders.  After going down 1-0 early in the 1st period, the Capitals got back to their scoring ways, tying up the game before the end of the 1st, adding one in the 2nd and then three in the 3rd, powering to a 5-1 victory and a 3-2 series lead, heading into the weekend.

Karl Alzner was the big hero in the pool scoring department, picking up 3 points on the night, while Marcus Johansson and Braden Holtby also had 2 points a piece.  There was nothing in the columns or the big guns, but some nights, teams just need their support players to step up.

Game 6 in this series will go on Long Island and it will be an early start, as they'll drop the puck at 1pm MT.

It was a pretty good game in Nashville on Thursday night, as the Predators tried to avoid elimination in Game 5 of their series against the Blackhawks.  The score was 1-1 going into the 3rd period, a well-contested game, lots of physical play and some good stretches of fast skating and good passing.

That was until the 3rd period, when the Predators had enough of that and just laid into the Blackhawks.  Three goals in the first three and a half minutes into the final frame and Nashville all of a sudden had a strangle hold on the game, finally finishing up with a 5-2 victory in the end.

Box 1 forward Filip Forsberg picked up a hat-trick in the game, leading the way for Nashville, while James Neal, Colin Wilson and Pekka Rinne were also picking up points as well.

On the Chicago side, Brad Richards had a goal and an assist, getting a mention in this post as well.

It's a 6pm MT start for Game 6, which will go in Chicago, a home game for the Blackhawks to try and move on.

The Vancouver Canucks went home behind the 8-ball and needed to find some sort of traction against those hard-checking Calgary Flames and that wasn't necessarily easy to find in Game 5.  The Flames managed to find another early lead against the Canucks, but the home team finally broke through in the 2nd period, tying up the game and starting to build some momentum into the 3rd period, where they were able to find another garbage goal, good enough to seal the deal at 2-1.

Daniel Sedin scored the winning goal for the Canucks, making him the only skater with a couple of points, while Ryan Miller made his first start in these playoffs, picking up the win and finally adding a couple of points to the pool from the Canucks' crease.

It doesn't get any easier for the Canucks, as they travel back to Calgary for Game 6 on Saturday night, a 7pm MT start on CBC.

Game-Winning Goals
All four bonus points stayed in the hockey pool on Thursday night, as it was Tyler Johnson for Tampa, Karl Alzner for Washington, Colin Wilson for the Predators and Daniel Sedin for Vancouver.

Tony C. jumped into the lead in the bonus points column, his team now has 9 GWG's to their name, as his team picked up a couple on Thursday night.

Nic L. and Sean L. are still in the hunt, as their teams still have 8 GWG's to their name.