The Carolina Hurricanes and the Tampa Bay Lightning meet in Game Four of their best of seven playoff series in NHL action from the Amalie Arena on Saturday afternoon.
The Carolina Hurricanes will look to even up the series and turn it into a best-of-three after getting on the board in the series with a 3-2 overtime win in their last matchup.
The opening period was scoreless but Brett Pesce would get the Hurricanes on the board first just over five minutes into the second period before Sebastian Aho doubled Carolina’s lead just 2:25 later. Brayden Point cut into the deficit 1:17 after that to get Tampa Bay on the board and Alex Killorn would tie the game up at two with just under four minutes to go in the middle frame. Neither side would find the go-ahead goal in the third period, so it was off to OT where Jordan Staal buried the OT winner for the Hurricanes on the power play just under six minutes into the first extra period.
Petr Mrazek got the win between the pipes for Carolina after stopping 35 of 37 shots faced in the winning effort while Andrei Vasilevskiy took the loss for Tampa Bay in goal, giving up all 3 goals on 27 shots faced in the defeat.
Carolina is 4-1 in their last 5 games as an underdog and 1-4 in their last 5 road games while the under is 4-1 in their last 5 games overall. 44-18 in their last 62 home games and 86-40 in their last 126 games overall while the over is 5-2 in their last 7 games as a favorite. The road team is 4-0 in the last 4 meetings between these two teams.
The plus money with the Hurricanes could be worth a look as it seems like something may have clicked with Carolina switching to Mrazek in goal, but Carolina wasn’t as effective on the road in the regular season and the Lightning did not lose back-to-back games at home all season. I expect the Lightning to bounce back here and to push the Hurricanes to the brink of elimination.