Jonathan Toews scored in Game 4 to help the Chicago Blackhawks tie the series. (USATSI)
Jonathan Toews scored in Game 4 to help the Chicago Blackhawks tie the series. (USATSI)

Chicago Blackhawks vs. Tampa Bay Lightning, Stanley Cup Final Game 4

Chicago Blackhawks 2, Tampa Bay Lightning 1 | Series tied 2-2 | Game 5, Saturday

Game 4 in a nutshell: Four games in the 2015 Stanley Cup Final. Four games decided by one goal. It's something that has happened only two other times in NHL history. On Wednesday night, it was the Chicago Blackhawks who came out on top by a 2-1 margin to tie the series, 2-2, as it goes back to Tampa Bay for Game 5 on Saturday night.

After getting little production from them over the first three games of the series, Jonathan Toews and Patrick Kane came through in Game 4 for the Blackhawks. Toews scored the first goal of the game, and Kane assisted on Brandon Saad's winner in the third period. The Tampa Bay Lightning had to play without starting goalie Ben Bishop due to an undisclosed injury. Andrei Vasilevskiy wasn't terrible in his place, but he wasn't exactly great in his first career postseason start, either.

Turning point: It was early in the game, but it turned out to be a series of missed opportunities for the Lightning. The Blackhawks were clearly off their game in the first period and not only managed two shots on goal through 20 minutes, they also took three penalties and gave the Lightning several chances to strike first. The Lightning failed on all of them. With every game being decided by such a razor-thin margin, you can't miss those chances early in games when they are there, especially against a team like Chicago, and if the Lightning want to look back and see where things went wrong on Wednesday it wasn't necessarily any of the goals they gave up. It was the goals they didn't score when the Blackhawks stumbled out of the gate.

Three things we learned

1. The Lightning had to go with rookie Andrei Vasilevskiy in Game 4, and for the most part, they did a great job of sheltering him and not asking him to do too much. They successfully limited the number of chances the Blackhawks were able to get and they kept the play away from him as much as possible. But when the Blackhawks did manage to get near him, they were dangerous and seemed constantly on the verge of scoring. Vasilevskiy, for as skilled as he is, looked like a 20-year-old rookie in his first playoff start as the Blackhawks hit the post behind him three times and the rookie netminder accidentally kicked a puck into his own net to give Toews his first goal of the series. 

2. Entering Game 4, the Chicago Blackhawks had played with the lead for a combined six minutes during the first three games of the Stanley Cup Final. It was a combination of falling behind early and then quickly giving up tying goals on the rare occasion they were able to take a lead. It happened again on Wednesday when they allowed Alex Killorn to score only five minutes after Toews scored the game's first goal. But when Brandon Saad scored early in the third period, Chicago was able to shut things down and hold off a furious last-minute push by the Lightning, thanks to more sensational play from Duncan Keith and some big stops from Corey Crawford.

3. Sometimes we place a little too much importance on how many faceoffs a team wins. It's obviously better to win them than lose them, but what happens in the first 10-15 seconds after a faceoff is sometimes way more important than the result of the draw. If you win the draw and immediately turn it over, whatever advantage you gained is lost. If you lose the draw and win a battle to get the puck back, nobody cares that you lost it. But if you keep losing them over and over, it's eventually going to come back to bite you. On Wednesday, that's what happened to the Lightning. They were dominated in the faceoff circle and it ended up leading to Saad's deciding goal early in the third period.

Video of the game: It's the game-winning goal that helped the Blackhawks tie the series, 2-2, as Brandon Saad scores to give his team a 2-1 lead in the third period.