Bruins ‘set bar’ for Bolts’ series victory
TAMPA BAY 3, BOSTON 1
The Tampa Bay Lightning, TAMPA, FLA. with a primary assist from a team that handled them during the regular season, are back in the Eastern Conference final for the third time in four years. Thank you, Boston Bruins. “I guess I can say it now. Boston set the bar for us and we played them three times late in the year,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said after his team’s 3-1 victory over the Bruins ended their second-round playoff series in five games.
“The first two times we played them, they literally manhandled us ... and we knew if we were going to go anywhere when we made the playoffs or if we made the playoffs that we had to be as good as Boston.
“We beat them 4-0 (in the last meeting). I think that gave us a little hit of confidence. I guess a lot of confidence . ... and ultimately we carried that through into this playoff round.”
Brayden Point and J.T. Miller scored second-period goals and Anton Stralman added an emptynetter with 1:29 remaining to end any chance of a Boston comeback.
Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 27 shots — 14 in the final period — for the Lightning, who rebounded from losing the series opener at home to eliminate the Bruins in five games.
Boston won three of the four games between the teams during the regular season, finishing one point behind Tampa Bay for the No. 1 seed in the East.
The Bruins outlasted Toronto in seven games in the opening round of the playoffs.
They scored six goals to beat the Lightning in Game 1, but had difficulty scoring after that.
Over the last three games, Boston failed to score an evenstrength goal.
“You’ve got to give them credit. We’re a team that scored all year long with different players in and out of the lineup,” Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said.
“We scored against Toronto, so it’s not like after 89 games we forgot how to score or not play the right way. I think their D corps is big and they move the puck. They did a good job of not allowing us to get inside.”
David Krejci scored on the power play in the final minute of the first period to give Boston a 1-0 lead that Point erased with his unassisted goal at 10:43 of the second.
Miller’s power-play goal broke the tie less than four minutes.
“They’re a really good team. They have been all year,” Bruins winger Brad Marchand said.
“They compete extremely hard, they have a lot of speed. They were better than we were in a lot of areas, one of them being puck battles and their pursuit. It showed up in the end.”
One day after being put “on notice” by the NHL for licking Lightning forward Ryan Callahan during Friday’s Game 4, there were no such incidents involving Marchand, who also made headlines after appearing to lick Toronto’s Leo Komarov in the first round.
The Lightning once again did a good job of containing Boston’s top line of Patrice Bergeron, David Pastrnak and Marchand. Although the trio combined for 23 points in the series, about half of that (11 points) came in Game 1.