Lightning fight back against Bruins to even series

TAMPA The proverbial pin appeared set to pop the air out of Tampa Bay's improbable postseason run.

Facing a three-goal hole to one of the top defensive teams in the league, the Lightning instead launched an epic comeback to breath life back into their playoff hopes after rallying for a 5-3 victory against Boston in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference Final to square the series 2-2. The best-of-seven series shifts back to Boston Monday for Game 5 and ensures there will be a Game 6 back in Tampa on Wednesday with one of the two teams playing for a berth in the Stanley Cup Final.

Mike Smith picked up his first ever playoff victory after stopping all 21 shots in relief of Dwayne Roloson while Sean Bergenheim scored his league best ninth playoff goal.

Simon Gagne capped off the comeback with his fourth goal of the playoffs at 6:54 of the third period while a pair of goals from Teddy Purcell 63 seconds apart kick-started things early in the second period to help the Lightning erase a 3-0 first period deficit.

Tampa Bay would eventually score five unanswered goals from the second period on to complete the largest comeback in Lightning playoff history, with the previous best a two-goal rally to beat Philadelphia on April 21, 1996.

"It's a great comeback,'' Lightning coach Guy Boucher said.

Great might be a bit of an understatement because after 20 minutes, Tampa Bay's hope of advancing to a second ever Stanley Cup final appeared to be bleak as the Lightning stared down the barrel of a second 3-1 series deficit in this postseason. Boston scored three times on nine shots to chase Roloson from the game for the second time in the series. Patrice Bergeron scored twice, one off a mishandled exchange between Victor Hedman and Brett Clark before putting the puck through Roloson's pads at 11:47 then another shorthanded on a 48-foot slap shot that beat Roloson five-hole with 2:02 left in the period that made it 3-0.

Facing the mountain of a climb, Boucher paraded went into the dressing room during the intermission and promptly praised his team. There was no kicking-the-can sort of speech, no tearing the paint off the locker room walls to get the team back on track. Instead it was the calm demeanor and approach that convinced the team a three-goal deficit was not impossible to overcome, even against a Boston team that was 30-6-6 when leading after the first period during the regular season and 6-0 during the postseason.

"He was calm, he told us that we've have done it plenty of times during the season and we could do it again,'' Lightning captain Vinny Lecavalier said. "We were working hard, we were skating hard and we were just not poised with the puck in the first period and it cost us. But we came out to play (Saturday) and Guy knew that, so he said to just play the same way, support each other.''

To get there, however, Tampa Bay had to get the first one on the board, and it would have to come after facing a Boston power play to start the second period and then another when Gagne was called for goaltender interference at 3:52. But once those were killed off, the comeback was on.

It started when Ryan Malone laid a body into 6-foot-9 Bruins' defenseman Zdeno Chara behind the Boston net that forced the puck to free up right on the stick of Gagne, who fed Purcell coming across the right circle. After initially fumbling the puck, Purcell recovered to find the puck on his backhand and zipping a shot inside the far post at 6:55. Sixty-three seconds later, Purcell came off the right boards, danced through some traffic before finding a seam and snapping a shot to the short side over Thomas that sent the crowd of 21,216 into a deafening state of frenzy.

But that was nothing compared to when Sean Bergenheim, the unsung scoring hero of the postseason for Tampa Bay, outworked Tomas Kaberle behind the Bruins' net to steal the puck and whip around the corner for a quick shot that beat Tim Thomas through the pads at 11:53 for three Lightning goals in a span of 3:58 to erase the deficit and even up the game.

"We've been in that situation a lot this year and we were able to come back,'' Gagne said. "We were really positive, even though we were down 3-0. We talked about the first goal, and after that everything was possible.''

The possible became reality when Malone, who made his presence felt throughout the game, cleared traffic in front of the Boston net after setting up Gagne, who scored his fourth of the playoffs at 6:54 of the third as the building erupted. Marty St. Louis finished the game off with an empty-net goal with 36.9 seconds left in the game that had the crowd on its feet and bring the decibel level inside the building to ear-piercing levels.

"We have a resilient bunch of guys here that we're going to play to that final buzzer,'' Malone said. "And tonight we got a couple of bounces and that's what we needed to do.''