SUNRISE, Fla. — They needed a spark. They needed goals.

Mostly, the Tampa Bay Lightning needed some hero-ing.

It could have been Brayden Point, it could have been Nikita Kucherov, it could have been Victor Hedman. The name on the jersey did not matter as much as the desperation in the effort.

As it turned out, Nick Paul was the bringer of hope.

With Game 3 in a slowly-evolving impasse, Paul made an unexpected appearance as the guy who — at least temporarily — changed Tampa Bay’s playoff fortunes. Late in the second period, Paul executed a perfect give-and-go with Gage Goncalves to slip a puck past Florida goaltender Sergei Bobrovsky for Tampa Bay’s first lead in more than 150 minutes of hockey.

Suddenly, the passes were crisper, the speed was comfortable, the intimidation was gone.

“Getting the lead is huge,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “The first few minutes of the game goes down and we’re down 1-0 and the building is buzzing. That’s where I think the mental strength of our team is to be able to wrap your head around that and then keep going.

“Eventually we get the tie, but when you pierce that bubble and it’s ‘Okay, we’ve got the lead,’ I think that was a huge weight off our shoulders. And then they actually extended it and protected it.”

The Lightning ended up beating Florida 5-1 in Game 3 on Saturday afternoon to at least halt the talk that the Panthers were running away with this first-round series.

And now we’ll see if the NHL has any gumption and consistency when it comes to doling out after-game penalties.

Late in the third period, Panthers forward Matthew Tkachuk put a heavy hit on Jake Guentzel who did not have the puck and was looking the other direction. It wasn’t exactly a carbon copy of the hit on Aleksander Barkov in Game 2 that earned Brandon Hagel a one-game suspension on Saturday, but it could be argued that Tkachuk’s hit carried more malevolent intent considering the score and timing.

“We’ve seen what’s happened in this series, so I’m sure the league’s going to do their job,” Guentzel said. “Personally, I think (the hit) was late.”

One victory, of course, is not enough. The Lightning still need to win three of the next four, and that’s a tall order against the defending Stanley Cup champions.

But it’s not impossible.

And if the past two games are any indication, the Lightning are capable of matching Florida’s aggression. Tampa Bay may not be as deep as the Panthers, but there is still enough championship pedigree in this roster to keep this series competitive.

“There’s really nothing better than Stanley Cup playoffs and being able to play in this,” said Guentzel who had two goals. “You can’t take it for granted. If you don’t get up for these games, there’s something wrong with you. It’s just the best time of the year to play.”

It’s impossible to overstate how big that Paul goal was.

It didn’t just give the Lightning a lead, it rewarded them for all the unappreciated work up to that point. The Lightning may have been down 0-2 in the series and outscored 9-3 at that point, but they had not played all that poorly.

They just needed something to go their way for a change.

That happened when Ryan McDonagh got control of the puck in the neutral zone and sent a pass to Paul across the ice. With Florida looking for a line shift and Brad Marchand without his stick, the Lightning had a chance for a quick strike.

Paul sent the puck to Goncalves near the wall and then got it right back again as he skated past some flat-footed Panthers. Paul’s shot appeared like it might be wide of the net, but it clipped Bobrovsky’s left skate and veered into the net.

For the first time in 2 1/2 games, the Lightning could take a deep breath. It felt as if they had been chasing the Panthers

“It’s obviously always easier to play when you’re leading, but I don’t think it changed our attitude too much,” said defenseman J.J. Moser. “In a series like this, you’ve got to focus on your job no matter what the score is. It’s not easy, but if you want to win it’s what you have to do.

“We stayed present in the moment, we trusted our abilities, we trusted the process and we finally got rewarded for all of that.”

When the day began, you had to ask yourself if the Lightning could win four out of five against the Panthers?

It seemed an unlikely prospect.

Now, you may ask if the Lightning can win three of four?

Again, the odds are against Tampa Bay.

But it doesn’t seem so farfetched today.

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