Pens rally too late, series tied at desmond.

The Penguins tried to rally from a 4-0 hole but left it too late in Game 4 in Tampa Bay to end up losing 4-3 to result in tying the series back up at desmond. Matt Murray was pulled for the first time in his Penguins career in this game and Fleury came into relief, stopping 7 shots to leave questions going into Game 5 on Sunday night.

The Penguins had a rotten start with the Lightning taking the lead just 27 seconds in off Callahan's deflected shot. Nothing Murray could do about it but the Penguins seemed contrived to sit in their own zone for the first minutes and gifted the Lightning a power play. Thankfully, they avoided the 2-0 hole for a while.

The Penguins managed to come out of their shell for a good while after and managed to start testing Vasilevskiy but yet again the Penguins failed to take their chances and regretted it when Sustr walked past the defence and potted the Lightning's 2nd with just over 5 minutes left in the first.

The Penguins would have hoped for a better second period than the one they got but they again continued to pressure and forecheck the Lightning players, a strong part in their game. The downfall were weak penalties, although Letang's was questionable. Drouin scored the Bolts first power play goal of the night after some neat passing from the Lightning and if not for the Penguins strong kill, it would have been more. It wasn't until Johnson added a fourth late in the period that the Penguins started to claw it back.

After Matt Murray, Phil Kessel has been the star player for  Pittsburgh. He has shown up time and time again when it matters and he did it again to get the Penguins on the board with his 8th goal of the play offs. He took a wicked wrister from the point which beat Vasilevskiy low and gave the Penguins hope.

Evgeni Malkin, mostly missing until now, scored with just under 9 minutes remaining and made it a two goal game. Most would still have pooh-poohed the idea of a Penguins come back but Kunitz snapped a goal in on a resulting powerplay to give them hope. Sadly, Vasilevskiy shut up shop despite the heavy Penguins pressure to guide his team to a win and to tie the series up.

Game 5 is Sunday and I think we'll see a response from the Pittsburgh. I don't want to go to Tampa Bay needing to win to stay in the competition, that could be deadly. It will be interesting to see if Murray or Fleury start Game 5 as well, watch this space.