Los Angeles: Tyler Johnson was reunited with linemates Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat and it paid off Saturday, as the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the New York Islanders 4-1 in game two of their NHL second round playoff series.
Johnson scored twice as the so called “Triplets” line helped the Lightning level the best of seven Eastern Conference series at one game each.
The Pittsburgh Penguins also knotted their second-round series with the Capitals at one game apiece with a 2-1 victory in Washington.
Eric Fehr scored the game winner against his former team with 4:28 remaining, deflecting an Evgeny Malkin feed past Braden Holtby from the slot for his second goal of the playoffs.
Carl Hagelin also scored for Pittsburgh, who had 23 saves from goalie Matt Murray. The Caps, down 1-0 through two periods, tied it on a power-play goal early in the third, Marcus Johansson notching his second goal of the post-season.
The Penguins will try to maintain the momentum when they host game three on Monday.
In Florida, Jonathan Drouin and Victor Hedman scored goals for the host Lightning and Ben Bishop made 19 saves at Amalie Arena.
Johnson scored at 6:03 in the first period to give the Lightning a 1-0 lead.
Drouin scored his first career playoff goal at 11:55 in the first period to make it 2-0 as he was able to slip a backhand shot between the pads of Islanders goalie Thomas Greiss.
The Islanders cut the deficit to 2-1 on a powerplay goal from Nikolay Kulemin at 15:15 of the first period. Defenseman Travis Hickey took a shot deflected by Kulemin past Bishop.
The Lightning got a deflection of their own when defenseman Hedman made the score 3-1 on a power-play goal at 11:59 of the second period.
Hedman took a slap shot from the point and it hit the skate of Islanders defenseman Calvin de Haan and got past Greiss.
Johnson added an empty-net goal by shooting from his own end with 2:18 remaining in the third.
