For Stars, Lightning, no love lost

EDMONTON, Alberta — Pat Maroon shot a puck into the Stars bench, nailing an opponent in the face. Victor Hedman tripped Corey Perry before a faceoff. Perry put the Lightning’s Cedric Paquette into a headlock before getting flipped over.

The dislike is building quickly for the Stars and Lightning in this Stanley Cup Final, which is knotted at 1-1 going into Wednesday night’s game. While nastiness typically develops in a lot of series this deep in the playoffs, it’s happening even earlier in this one because players have grown cranky after eight weeks in the NHL bubble.

They’re taking it out on the ice. “That would probably play a big part of it,” Stars coach Rick Bowness said. “The things that you normally do to relax between games, whether it’s going out for dinner with your wife or go for a drive or going to the driving range to hit golf balls — anything you can do to relax between games is not there, so everyone’s a little edgy.”

The championship will ultimately be decided by which team can dictate its game to the other in what has become a best three out of five series. Those extra pushes, shoves and facewashes are part of it — and they only ratchet up the intensity, even without fans to cheer or boo it all.

“It seems like in this setting with no fans, it’s even more competitive out there with just you and the other team,” Stars forward Andrew Cogliano said. “Both teams are going to fight for every inch. As the series goes on, it’s just going to get more competitive.”

It’s competitive and chippy after the teams split the first two games and combined for 50 penalty minutes

.“The teams are so good that what separates you sometimes is whoever wants it more,” Cogliano said.