Seth Jones’ power-play goal late in the third period capped a thrilling rally, as the Columbus Blue Jackets erased a three-goal deficit and stunned the host Tampa Bay Lightning 4-3 on Wednesday in the opening round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Jones scored his second career playoff goal when he rang a shot off the crossbar with 5:55 to play. He took a slick pass from Artemi Panarin and roofed the power-play goal to complete a spree of four unanswered goals, three of which came in the third period.
Josh Anderson had a goal and an assist, and Nick Foligno and David Savard also tallied for the Blue Jackets, who lost all three regular-season meetings with the Lightning by a combined score of 17-3.
In a matchup of the two top goaltenders in games won this season, Columbus’ Sergei Bobrovsky made 26 saves while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 22 shots for Tampa Bay. The Lightning, who won the Presidents’ Trophy and tied an NHL single-season record with 62 wins, led 3-0 after one period on goals by Alex Killorn, Anthony Cirelli and Yanni Gourde. The Lightning blitzed the Metropolitan Division club in the opening 20 minutes.
Tempers flared early when Tampa Bay’s Dan Girardi blindsided Brandon Dubinsky at 2:55 of the first period. The two fought in the neutral zone, and Columbus’ Scott Harrington grappled with Cedric Paquette, who ended up pinned to the ice by Harrington.
However, Tampa Bay struck first when Jones bobbled the puck at the blue line on the power play, and Killorn stole it, raced in on a breakaway and beat Bobrovsky for a short-handed goal at 4:12. Bobrovsky’s weak pass around the boards from behind his goal allowed Erik Cernak to get off a long blast, and Cirelli, who scored 19 goals in his rookie season, flipped in the rebound at 11:01. Gourde tipped in a shot from the slot by Mikhail Sergachev at 17:50 for the three-goal advantage.
Foligno started the rally, beating Vasilevskiy on the blocker side off a breakaway for his seventh playoff marker at 9:15 of the second period to trim the deficit to 3-1. Savard’s wrister on a quick rush at 7:56 of the third period cut it to 3-2.
Dubinsky’s double-minor for high-sticking Paquette at 9:23 had the Blue Jackets playing defensively on the penalty kill, but Anderson tied it with a short-handed goal at 11:54, setting the stage for Jones’ winner.

Sharks storm past Knights
Brent Burns, Evander Kane, Tomas Hertl and Marc-Edouard Vlasic each had goal and an assist, and Martin Jones finished with 24 saves to lead the host San Jose Sharks to a 5-2 victory over the Vegas Golden Knights in Game 1 of a first-round Western Conference playoff series on Wednesday night.
Joe Pavelski also scored a goal, and Erik Karlsson added two assists for the Sharks.
Mark Stone scored both goals for Vegas, his first career two-goal playoff game. Max Pacioretty finished with two assists while Marc-Andre Fleury made 28 saves. Game 2 of the best-of-seven set is Friday night in San Jose.
San Jose, which was blown out 7-0 in Game 1 of its six-game, second-round playoff loss to the Golden Knights last season, took a 1-0 lead in the first period on a power-play goal by Pavelski. Burns fired a wrist shot from the right point that caromed in off the face of Pavelski stationed in front of the net and over Fleury’s right shoulder. A dazed Pavelski didn’t celebrate after the score, skating straight to the locker room. He returned in the second period wearing a full face shield. The Sharks scored twice in the span of 45 second early in the second period to increase their lead to 3-0. Burns got the first, beating Fleury with a wrist shot from the left circle that banged in off the post on the goalie’s glove side.