Ondrej Palat scored two goals to lead Tampa Bay to a 3-1 victory over the Boston Bruins on Saturday afternoon in Toronto, putting the Lightning on the cusp of reaching the next round in the Stanley Cup playoffs.

Nikita Kucherov collected a pair of assists in Game 4 and goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy made 29 saves for the Lightning, who lead 3-1 in the best-of-seven Eastern Conference semifinal and will look to close out the series Monday.

The Bruins, outscored 10-2 in the last two games, were guilty of surrendering a couple of prime scoring chances early and paid the price when Palat opened the scoring -- the third straight game in which the Lightning forward has scored.

Thanks to a Bruins turnover, bad coverage and Brayden Point's nifty stick handling before threading a pass to the slot, Palat had a golden chance and buried it at 8:59 of the clash.

Palat netted his second of the game shortly after Vasilevskiy made a key stop on Brandon Carlo. Kucherov chipped the puck to Anthony Cirelli at the blue line and he set the table for Palat to rocket a one-timer from beyond the circles at the 12:29 mark of the second period.

Then, with Boston's Nick Ritchie given a major penalty for boarding Yanni Gourde, Victor Hedman scored on the ensuing power play to extend the lead to 3-0 with 1:56 left in the second period. Hedman's shot deflected off the skate of Boston's Par Lindholm and went up and over goaltender Jaroslav Halak to find the twine.

The Bruins, the reigning Presidents' Trophy winners for the best regular season record, got on the board thanks to Jake DeBrusk's power-play goal at 7:04 of the third period, a perfect shot from below the right face-off dot with a screen set, but that was as close as they could get.

Halak, put into the breach after No. 1 goalie Tuukka Rask left the team early in the first round, took the loss, but his 23-save outing kept the Bruins in the hunt, especially when his team surrendered a flurry of chances in the first 30 minutes.

--Field Level Media