Palat, Lightning strike quickly

BOSTON— Some nights, he just might be the best player the Tampa Bay Lightning has.

No, he doesn’t score as often as Nikita Kucherov. No, he’s nowhere near as famous or popular as Steven Stamkos. No, he doesn’t get nearly the attention as goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy.

But make no mistake. Ondrej Palat is a big reason why the Lightning is where they are right now.

And where are they? Halfway to reaching the Eastern Conference final after going into their personal house of horrors and beating the Bruins, 4-1, Wednesday night to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven series.

Palat has been a major factor in the team’s success over the past few seasons. And his fingerprints were all over Game 3. He scored a pair of goals in the first 3:41 to spark the Lightning victory that has given Tampa Bay back the home-ice advantage it lost.

While certainly this series remains far from over, the Lightning have pretty much erased any of the ominous doubts one might have had after Boston’s dominating Game 1 victory.

For two games now, the Lightning have been the better team and Palat is the epitome of that.

He doesn’t get rattled. He plays well in his own zone. He makes solid hits. He takes hits to make plays. He scores timely goals.

The Lightning could not have dreamed for a better start Wednesday. Two goals in the first 3:41, both Palat. One off a pretty feed by Tyler Johnson, who is becoming the Lightning’s most clutch player in these playoffs. That goal came only 1:47 into the game.

Palat’s second goal, and his fourth of the playoffs, came off a deflection of a Victor Hedman shot from the point.

The goals pumped life and confidence into the Lightning and certainly sucked the air out of Boston’s sellout crowd. And Vasilevskiy made them hold up, stopping 28 of 29 Boston shots.

Patrice Bergeron cut the Lightning lead to 2-1 with a power-play goal with 5:48 left in the first period.

But the Lightning took the air out of TD Garden again when rookie Tony Cirelli scored his first of the playoffs. Then they put the Bruins into a sleeper hold, stifling the Bruins for two periods, all while withstanding Boston’s attempts to draw Tampa Bay into a street fight. Stamkos rounded out the scoring on the power play, in the final minute of the third.