Cedric Paquette played the unexpected offensive hero as the Tampa Bay Lightning defeated the Chicago Blackhawks 3-2 in Game 3 of the 2015 Stanley Cup Finals on Monday night.
The Lightning's Ryan Callahan opened the scoring in the first when Tampa Bay defenseman Victor Hedman slapped a stretch pass to Callahan, who was lurking at the Chicago blueline. A quick turn into the offensive zone and Callahan rocketed one over the left shoulder of Corey Crawford, off both the crossbar and right post, and in.
The Hawks missed two wide-open nets shortly thereafter, despite pushing the pace - Chicago recorded the next 16 shots after Callahan's goal. It took a Brad Richards slapshot on a powerplay, after a Braydon Coburn penalty, through a screen from Andrew Shaw to get the Hawks on the board. It was Richards' first Stanley Cup final goal since 2004, when he was still a member of the Lightning.
Tampa Bay goaltender Ben Bishop, whose status for the game was in question due to an undisclosed injury suffered sometime during Game 2, never seemed quite right. Bishop was fighting pucks and struggled to hold onto rebounds. Despite his apparent injury, he stood tall and made enough saves to give the Lightning the victory.
The second featured end-to-end action, including the Blackhawks killing off a huge 5-on-3 powerplay later in the period after Brandon Saad was sent off for interfering with Bishop on a play that left the big goalie prone on the ice for a few scary moments.
Less than five minutes into the third, Saad put the Hawks up 2-1, with a high glove side one-timer after some nifty passing by the Chicago top line.
The elation in Chicago was short-lived though, as a mere 13-seconds later, Ondrej Palat scored during a scrum out front of Crawford after a Nikita Kucherov carry and backhand shot.
Paquette, who had spent most of the first two games of the series shadowing the Hawks top-line and doing his best to neutralize captain Jonathan Toews, scored a stunner of a game-winning goal off another Hedman carry into the zone with just over three minutes remaining.
"I was really frustrated," Paquette said after Saturday's game, via Sean McIndoe of Grantland.com. "My playoff wasn't going the way I wanted ... Coop told us, 'You guys need to chip in if we want to win that Cup.'"
The Blackhawks did their best to force the issue after pulling Crawford in the wake of Paquette's goal, but they'll now head into Game 4 down 2-1 in the best-of-seven series.
The series will remain in Chicago for one more game before heading back to the Amalie Arena in Tampa for Game 5.
