TORONTO — Andrei Vasilevskiy made 16 saves, and the Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Columbus Blue Jackets, 3-2, on Saturday night to take a 2-1 lead in the best-of-seven playoff series.
Alex Killorn, Brayden Point and Victor Hedman scored, and the Lightning held off a 6-on-5 push by the Blue Jackets late.
Game 4 is Monday.
Riley Nash and Eric Robinson scored for the Blue Jackets, and Joonas Korpisalo made 31 stops after piling up 121 in the first two games of the series, including a five-overtime loss Tuesday night.
After the Blue Jackets came up empty on more than a minute of a 5-one-3 advantage, Killorn made it 1-0 for the Lightning with 4 minutes, 12 seconds left in the first period when he dragged the puck around diving Columbus defenseman David Savard and beat Korpisalo between the pads.
Nash got his first goal of the playoffs to tie it early in the second. He took a feed from Gus Nyquist just below the blue line and rifled a shot from the left circle over Vasilevskiy’s glove.
Point put the Lightning up again with 5:44 left in the second when he put back a shot that had bounced off Korpisalo. Hedman got his first goal of the playoffs and pushed the Tampa Bay lead to 3-1 with 1:07 left in the period.
Columbus got back within one early in the third period when rookie Robinson followed his own shot and beat Vasilevskiy.
The Lightning outshot Columbus, 34-17, including 16-4 in the second period.
