NHL | Colorado – Tampa Bay 4: 3 PP, Palát’s goal was not enough to win Tampa, Colorado leads the Stanley Cup final

Before the match, Colorado coach Jared Bednar decided whether to bet on team leader Darcy Kuemper in the goal, or on Pavel the Frenchman, who caught the semi-final series with Edmonton. In the end, a healed Canadian goalkeeper gained confidence, covering 20 shots in the match.

In the first period, Kuemper watched the excellent performance of his teammates. Avalanche captain Gabriel Landeskog opened the scoring in the eighth minute. Less than two minutes passed and Colorado led by two goals. Valery Nishushkin took advantage of the excellent attack by Cale Makar and increased it to 2: 0 after passing Nathan MacKinnon.

The Lightning first made their mark in the 13th minute, when Nick Paul escaped after an inconspicuous throw and scored his fourth goal in the elimination fights, despite the pressure of the commuter Erik Johnson. At the end of the third, however, the Tampa hockey players offered Colorado a five-on-three power play and the home team again got into a two-goal lead thanks to Artturi Lehkonen’s run.

At the beginning of the second period, both Czech hockey players in the Tampa jersey had a reduction on their hockey sticks. However, Jan Rutta’s throw from the blue line ended only on the pole and the lone Palát did not succeed in front of Kuemper.

In the 33rd minute, the Czech forward had already experienced. He drove the puck into the offensive zone, where he exchanged it with Nikita Kučerov and scored his 46th goal in the elimination fights from the goal area. In the historical ranking of Czech hockey players, the native of Frýdek-Místek became second only to Jaromír Jágr. In the final of the Stanley Cup, Palát won the sixth time in his career, thus equaling the second best Czech Patrik Eliáš. Only Petr Sýkora, who scored eight goals in thirty finals, is better off.

After 48 seconds, defender Mikhail Sergačjov followed Palát’s shot and sent the match into overtime. In less than a minute and a half, Swedish striker Burakovsky decided to win Colorado.