Vegas players celebrate their game-winning OT goal vs. the Wild in Saturday's Game 4 of their Stanley Cup first-round playoff series in St. Paul.(AP photo)

ST. PAUL, Minn. (AP) — Some puck luck finally went the Vegas Golden Knights’ way and they avoided getting pushed to the brink of elimination.

Ivan Barbashev scored at 17:26 of overtime and the Golden Knights beat the Minnesota Wild 4-3 in Game 4 on Saturday to even their first-round playoff series.

Nicolas Roy and Tomas Hertl each had a goal and assist, and Shea Theodore also scored for the Pacific Division champion Golden Knights. Adin Hill made 29 saves.

Late in the extra period, Smith forced a Wild turnover deep in its own zone. Roy’s centering attempt that deflected off Wild defenseman Jake Middleton and Barbashev knocked in the loose puck off a scramble in front. It was his first goal of the playoffs after scoring 23 in the regular season.

“It seems like those are the bounces we weren’t quite getting the first couple of games. To have some of those go in and get some confidence from it is pretty big going forward,” Theodore said.

Vegas killed a power play earlier in the extra frame.

Marco Rossi, Marcus Foligno and Jared Spurgeon scored for Minnesota. Filip Gustavsson made 42 saves, including a pair of sprawling left pad saves of Reilly Smith’s attempts with 3:49 left in regulation.

“This is a series. They’re a heck of a team. Not going to be easy,” Foligno said. “It was a good game both sides. This is what we expect. Best out of three going back to Vegas, and yeah, we’re in a good spot. Keep our heads up here.”

The Wild are now 0-5 all-time in Game 4 when holding a 2-1 series lead.

Game 5 is in Vegas on Tuesday, with Game 6 on Thursday back in Minnesota.

“We lost home ice, we got it back. It’s been hard fought, every inch of ice there, so that’s how I’m looking at it. Emotionally, we’re gonna enjoy it, but, tomorrow we’ll rest and then get back to work,” Vegas coach Bruce Cassidy.

With the Golden Knights trailing 2-1 entering the third period, Roy scored off a scramble during a four-minute power play at 4:50. Vegas then took the lead midway through the period when a shot from Mark Stone deflected off Hertl, who was on the ice tangled up with Ryan Hartman.

However, Spurgeon countered 54 seconds later for Minnesota on a wraparound to tie it 3-3.

The Wild were 29-0-0 when leading after two periods in the regular season, the only team with a perfect record when holding a lead after 40 minutes of play.

“There was never a panic when they scored that goal right after we scored ours. We didn’t change our game, we stuck with it, and I think overall we were pretty good tonight,” Roy said.

Theodore and Rossi exchanged first-period goals before Foligno gave Minnesota a 2-1 lead early in the second.

A leap by Foligno knocked a fluttering puck down in front of the Vegas net, setting off a scramble that ended with Foligno shoveling the puck in for his third goal of the series.

Minnesota played without left wing Marcus Johansson who left Thursday’s Game 3 in the third period with a lower-body injury. Coach John Hynes did not provide a timeline for his potential return. Vinnie Hinostroza slotted in for the Wild.

LIGHTNING 5,PANTHERS 1

The Tampa Bay Lightning were in an early hole against the Florida Panthers, again. In the first two games of their first-round playoff series, that spelled disaster for Tampa Bay.

Not this time.

The Lightning turned the deficit into a rout in Game 3, beating the Panthers 5-1 Saturday and tightening the series to 2-1.

Andrei Vasilevskiy was nearly perfect, stopping 33 of 34 shots, and the Lightning got goals from Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point, Nick Paul and Luke Glendening. Anthony Cirelli added an empty-netter with five minutes left, and Nikita Kucherov had three assists.

“To be honest, you would have never known sitting in the locker room after Game 2 that we were down 0-2,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “It wasn’t going to guarantee the result, but I knew (darn) well how the effort was going to be.”

The Lightning will try to even things up in Game 4 on Monday at Sunrise. The defending Stanley Cup champion Panthers, however, are 5-0 after taking a 2-0 lead in a playoff series.

Paul gave the Lightning their first lead of the series when he slipped a shot just inside the pad of Panthers goalie Sergei Bobrovsky in the second period. Guentzel made it a two-goal lead just 21 seconds into the third before the Lightning pulled away with Glendening and Cirelli’s goals later in the period.

Matthew Tkachuk scored for the Panthers, his third goal of the series. Bobrovsky finished with 17 saves.

Tkachuk, who scored twice in the opener, got on the board 2:43 into the game when he tapped a feed from Sam Bennett past Vasilevskiy for his 20th playoff goal with the Panthers. The Lightning responded when Guentzel’s shot bounced off Point and past Bobrovsky later in the first to give the NHL’s highest-scoring team in the regular season its first goal in nearly five periods.

Vasilevskiy had given up seven goals in the first two games but was huge on Saturday. He bounced back from Tkachuk’s quick goal and withstood a flurry of Florida shots in the second and third. The Panthers had 71 total shot attempts.

SENATORS 4, MAPLE LEAFS 3 (OT)

Defenseman Jake Sanderson scored on a long wrist shot from the left boards at 17:42 of overtime and the Ottawa Senators beat the Toronto Maple Leafs to force a fifth game in the first-round series.

Sanderson kept the puck in at the blue line and fired the wrist shot that sailed through traffic and past goalie Anthony Stolarz into the top, right corner.

The teams needed extra time for the third straight game, with Ottawa finally breaking though after 3-2 overtime losses in Games 2 and 3. Toronto missed a chance for its first sweep since beating Ottawa in the 2001 first round.

Game 5 is Tuesday night in Toronto.

Ottawa killed a four-minute power play in overtime after Drake Batherson was given a double minor for high-sticking Toronto defenseman Chris Tanev.

Toronto defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson tied it with 5:29 left in regulation. He beat Linus Ullmark from the right side off William Nylander’s cross pass.

AVS 4, STARS 0

Colorado captain Gabriel Landeskog scored his first NHL goal in nearly three years, Logan O’Connor had a short-handed tally and the Avalanche beat the Dallas Stars in Game 4 in Denver to even their first-round series.

Nathan MacKinnon added a power-play goal, Samuel Girard also scored and Brock Nelson had two assists for the Avalanche. Mackenzie Blackwood made 23 saves for his first postseason shutout.

The series moves back to Dallas for Game 5 on Monday.

Landeskog’s snap shot in the second period made it 3-0 and sent the capacity crowd into a frenzy. It was Landeskog’s first goal since June 20, 2022, against Tampa Bay in the Stanley Cup Final. He helped the Avalanche hoist the Cup six days later.

The 32-year-old Landeskog was sidelined because of a chronically injured right knee. He made his return in Game 3 — 1,032 days after his last NHL game.