Steven Stamkos, Pat Maroon and Ondrej Palat each had a goal and an assist, and the Tampa Bay Lightning scored four times in the second period and beat the Colorado Avalanche 6-2 in Game 3 of the Stanley Cup Final.
Anthony Cirelli, Nicholas Paul and Corey Perry also scored to help the two-time defending champion Lightning bounce back after playing poorly while losing the first two games on the road.
Nikita Kucherov and Victor Hedman had two assists, and Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 37 shots.
Stamkos, Paul, Maroon and Perry scored in the second period.
Darcy Kuemper, after rarely being tested in a 7-0 win in Game 2 Saturday night that put the Avalanche up two games to none, was pulled midway through the period after giving up five goals on 22 shots.
After being the team thriving on pressuring the Lightning into mistakes and holding them to 16 shots in Game 2, Monday night found the Avalanche on their heels with a number of bad defensive turnovers that saw Kuemper unable to make the big save on ensuing Lightning shots.
Gabriel Landeskog had two goals and Mikko Rantanen had two assists for the Avalanche.
Game 4 is Wednesday night in Tampa.
STANLEY CUP FINAL SCHEDULE:
Game 1: Colorado 4, Tampa Bay 3 (OT)
Game 2: Colorado 7, Tampa Bay 0
Game 3: Tampa Bay 6, Colorado 2
Game 4: Wednesday at Tampa, 8
Game 5: Friday at Colorado, 8
*-Game 6: June 26 at Tampa, 8
*-Game 7: June 28 at Colorado, 8
*-if necessary
