Four second-period goals not enough for the Hurricanes in wild Game 4 loss to Lightning

It’s now elementary for the Carolina Hurricanes: win or put away the skates for the season.

The Tampa Bay Lightning streaked to a 6-4 victory over the Canes on Saturday at Amalie Arena, seizing a 3-1 lead in the best-of-seven Stanley Cup playoff series.

Game 5 will be played Tuesday at 6:30 p.m. at PNC Arena. The Canes will either win and hold a postgame Storm Surge, or will form a handshake line to congratulate the series winner.

The Lightning, the 2020 Stanley Cup champion, showed resilience Saturday. Tampa Bay fell behind 4-2 in the second period as the Canes reeled off four straight goals, but scored the last three goals of the period and then picked up the first goal in the third for a 6-4 lead.

Tampa Bay, which scored three power-play goals, got two goals and an assist from both Steven Stamkos and Nikita Kucherov.

It made for a long day for both goalies. Tampa Bay’s Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed four goals in the second period and the Canes’ Petr Mrazek, starting after a Game 3 victory, was touched for six in the game.

The Canes took a 2-1 lead in the second period as Teuvo Teravainen and Jesper Fast scored in 39 seconds. After Tampa Bay tied it, defensemen Dougie Hamilton and Jaccob Slavin both scored in a little more than two minutes for a 4-2 cushion.

But the Canes continually had their momentum stymied by penalties. Kucherov scored on the power play after a Jake Bean holding call, and Stamkos got his power-play goal with 23 seconds left in the second period after an Andrei Svechnikov roughing penalty.

In the third, Bean turned the puck over and Tampa Bay scored in transition as Kucherov ripped a shot past Mrazek for his second goal of the game at 6:01 of the period.

Slavin had a goal and assist, and Svechnikov two assists for the Canes. Brayden Point had a goal and assist for Tampa Bay.

Second period: 20 minutes, 8 goals

The second period was wild. There’s no other way to put it as the Canes and Lightning combined for eight goals, leaving Tampa Bay in front 5-4.

After being generally outplayed most of the first period, the Canes took a 2-1 lead, had the Lightning tie it, retook the lead in goals by defensemen Dougie Hamilton and Jaccob Slavin, and then lost it again.

The Canes first killed off a tripping call against Andrei Svechnikov, then got goals from Teuvo Teravainen and Jesper Fast in a span of 39 seconds for the 2-1 lead. Hamilton and Slavin later scored two goals in 2:06.

The Lightning countered with two power-play goals from Steven Stamkos and one from Nikita Kucherov. Tyler Johnson’s goal tied it 4-4 with 2:50 left in the period and Stamkos’ second gave Tampa the 5-4 lead.

Jordan Staal found Teravainen open in the slot for a quick shot at 4:30 to tie it 1-1. Fast then scored his first of the playoffs at 5:09 for the lead.

A boarding penalty against Jordan Martinook allowed Tampa Bay to tie it on Stamkos’ first goal after the Canes had killed off the first three penalties of the game.

The Canes answered. Hamilton scored on a shot from the point. Slavin scored on a shot from the left boards for a 4-2 lead.

But a penalty against defenseman Jake Bean stalled the momentum. Kucherov made it a 4-3 game with his power-play strike and Johnson tied it. After a roughing call against Svechnikov with 53 seconds left in the second, Tampa Bay took the 5-4 lead on Stamkos’ score with 23 seconds left.

First period: Tampa Bay leads 1-0

Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point won’t score an easier goal. After Canes goalie Petr Mrazek had many several sparkling saves, Point was able to drift in alone on the backdoor for a tap-in and 1-0 lead after the first.

With defenseman Dougie Hamilton late in picking up his man, Point took a pass from Ondrej Palat -- Canes defenseman Jaccob Slavin just missed getting a skate on the pass -- and scored his seventh of the playoffs at 14:24 of the period.

The Lightning outshot the Canes 12-7 in the period, had 14 scoring chances to the Canes’ six, and maintained possession in the Carolina end much of the period. The Canes have had few good offensive chances -- held to two “high danger” -- and gotten better play from its fourth line than the top three lines.

The Canes did kill off two penalties in the first against the Lightning’s potent power play -- the highlight of the period for Carolina.

Forward Warren Foegele, who injured a shoulder in Game 3, has been able to play in Game 4. In an odd circumstance, Foegele and Tampa’s Blake Coleman both were called for unsportsmanlike conduct penalties jostling on the opening draw.

Talk about an odd start. Canes defenseman Brady Skjei clipped Nikita Kucherov with a high stick in the Canes zone. He was first sent to the penalty box, then told he could leave as Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper howled in protest. No penalty was called.

Another weird play: play was stopped when the puck slipped down the pants of the Canes’ Jordan Staal.

Game setup: Handling ups and downs

Lightning coach Jon Cooper has his own way of describing the Stanley Cup playoffs.

“A big, damn roller coaster,” Cooper said after Tampa Bay’s 3-2 overtime loss Thursday in Game 3 against the Canes.

Cooper also used all the expected coachspeak terms. A team must “turn the page,” not get too high or low, must keep “trusting the process.”

“You’ve got to keep going. You can’t hang your head on these,” Cooper said.

That’s what the Canes did: kept going, They lost the first two games of the second-round series at home. They lost forward Nino Niederreiter to an injury before Game 1, Vincent Trocheck in Game 2 and then Warren Foegele in Game 3.

They also found a way to keep going, win a game and get back in the series. The Canes, with goalie Petr Mrazek in net, were able to control the emotional lows of playing well but losing both games in Raleigh, then won an emotional game in Tampa despite losing a 2-0 lead. Talk about ebbs and flows.

“It’s definitely real,” Brind’Amour said Saturday morning. “There’s so much of that going on and that is the key, to just embrace it. You know it’s going to happen in the games and there’s going to be ups and downs, and things happen for you and against you, and you’ve got to just keeping grinding it out.

“And understanding that is part of it. It’s part of the process. And not let it affect you in a bad way.”

Teams rarely play poorly in the playoffs and win but teams can often play well and lose. The Canes felt that way after the two games in Raleigh. Some of the Lightning players said the same after Game 3.

“I think it might be different if we didn’t play a good game and they won, but I think for the most part we’re pretty happy with the way we played,” Tampa Bay’s Brayden Point said after the game. “I liked our game, liked our compete.”

It’s simple math now: the Canes either will return to Raleigh with the series tied 2-2 or trailing 3-1. But could the pressure have shifted toward the home team for Game 4?

“The pressure’s there for everybody, always,” Brind’Amour said.

Canes lineup

Mrazek will again be the starting goalie, Brind’Amour said. The lineup, he said, might not change from Game 3 although Brind’Amour said both Trocheck and Foegele could be game-time decisions.

Foegele did come out for the pregame warmup as did forward Max McCormick.

History check

Much has been made of how the Canes lost their first two games at home against Montreal in 2006 and then recovered to win four straight, the series and go on to win the Cup. But the Canes also were 1-2 in their series against Buffalo in the 2006 Eastern Conference final heading into Game 4 in Buffalo.

The Canes, with Martin Gerber replacing rookie Cam Ward in net, beat the Sabres 4-0. Gerber also started Game 5 before being lifted for Ward, who took it the rest of the way in the playoffs.