NHL Eastern Conference Final Game Night: 9-17-20 Lightning v Islanders
Lightning survive and advance to the Stanley Cup Final in another marathon squeaker.
TB-2
NYI-1 (OT)
Tampa Bay Wins the Series 4-2
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed 1 goal on 27 shots for the victory. His one goal allowed was a bit of a horrible overplay on the Toews wraparound goal and I had a horrible feeling in my gut the adage about soft goals being the margin might come true again tonight. He redeemed himself several times tonight, none more prominent than a shorthanded breakaway by Brock Nelson after he picked Tyler Johnson's pocket. (Naturally, NBCSN proceeded to spend the next minute criticizing his technique on the breakaway stop... because NBCSN).
First Period
4:15 NYI Toews (2), (Lee, Barzal)
6:26 TB Hedman (9), (Cernak, Kucherov)
Second Period
NO SCORING
Third Period
NO SCORING
Overtime
13:18 TB Cirelli (3), (Goodrow, Killorn)
Anthony Cirelli and Nikita Kucherov were the game's first and third stars.
Tonight's script paralleled the Game Five script, but the actors played their roles differently. The Lightning were dominant again through the first thirty minutes of regulation, but again surrendered the opening goal and again had to claw back to even. From there, things got a little pear shaped. The Islanders started a Spartan 300 push midway through the Second Period and carried the balance of play for huge swaths of the remainder of that period and the Third Period. Put simply, the Lightning looked like a team that had hit the wall from an energy standpoint and that they were running on fumes. Their puck management started to slide a little and they started to routinely find themselves second to loose pucks for the first time in this series. To their immense credit, after getting the game into Overtime, they found their reserve fuel tank and played the game pretty evenly up until a gloriously little simple centering feed in tight by Barclay Goodrow to Anthony Cirelli who banked the puck in off the far post and off the back of Varlamov's pad to clinch the Lightning's third Eastern Conference Championship.
Before moving on to the Dallas Stars in the Stanley Cup Final, a little reflection on some of the team's performances to this point. Nikita Kucherov tonight tied Brad Richards' Lightning record for points in a playoff season with 26. Richards was a deadly right point option for the Lightning in the '04 playoffs, but with the Lightning power play being pretty subpar this postseason, Kucherov's had to make hay more at 5v5. His linemates Brayden Point and Ondrej Palat have also cloaked themselves in glory as have the Goodrow/Gourde/Coleman line which have been by far and away the Lightning's two most reliable lines. But, with all due respect to the forwards, the engine of this Lightning playoff run has been Victor Hedman and this deep, deep Lightning defensive corps. Victor Hedman is closing in on an almost unattainable NHL postseason goals record for defensemen set by Paul Coffey in the Edmonton Oilers' glory years. Hedman is so good he's fueled a renaissance for the career of Zach Bogosian while the Lightning roll seven deep in defensemen who have been excellent in supporting the play offensively and really giving the Lightning their possession advantage all postseason. And then there's Andrei Vasilevskiy. Here's the thing: Vasilevskiy's sitting on a .930+ save percentage and has made more than his fair share of big situational saves in these playoffs. And, yet, we know the Big Cat has another gear. He has yet to record a shutout in this playoff campaign and he has yet to post one of those long, crazy 100+ minutes hockey where he just puts the deflector shields up over the net and leaves them up. With the Lightning starting to feel the weight of an NHL record number of overtime minutes they've played this season, the Lightning need their hole cards like Hedman to be their hole cards. And, perhaps, their biggest hole card of all is their young netminder who perpetually looks on the cusp of legendary greatness. Is now the time?
On paper, the Lightning should be the favorites against a Bishop-less Stars team. And yet, the Stars come into this series with a rest and energy advantage and the Lightning are really going to have to figure out how to manufacture a couple of early wins in this series as they try to work off their hangover from this Islanders series. Will Steven Stamkos make his postseason debut? Gosh I hope so. The Lightning need all the bodies they can get right now and the power play has been in desperate need of Stamkos' abilities for some time. It would also give Cooper a backstop in case lingering injuries to Brayden Point and now Anthony Cirelli, who took a big knock tonight, start to weigh on them in the Final. The biggest thing for the Lightning, though, is to unlock Anton Khudobin and remind him... dude, you're Anton Khudobin. He has a great defensive team playing in front of him, but that team is feeding right now off of Khudobin riding a hot streak. If the Lightning can knock him around early in this series and plant a little seed of doubt in the young Stars' minds, all the better. The fancy stats tell a story that the Lightning should win this series, but they told a similar tale to the Vegas Knights, too. So, rest up Lightning, because your marathon has just begun in the quest to validate the fantastic team that has been built in Tampa Bay over the last decade.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.