CHESS MATCH IS UNDERWAY
Jon Cooper told his Tampa Bay Lightning players in the locker room following their Game 1 loss they need to be a lot better to take out the Colorado Avalanche in the Stanley Cup Final.
After a day of rest, they got to work figuring out just how to do that.
The two-time defending champion Lightning are no strangers to making adjustments and bouncing back in a playoff series. Their biggest test begins with trying to slow down the speedy Avalanche, who have their own tweaks to make in the chess match that has now begun going into Game 2 tonight in Denver.
“We’re dissecting the game by zone, by special teams, by breakouts, by forecheck,” Cooper said. “There’s so many different things that go into it.”
Based on a lack of familiarity facing an opponent from the opposite conference, the start of a final is more of a learning process than series earlier in the playoffs, and it took experiencing — and at times getting flustered by — Colorado’s pace for Tampa Bay to know exactly what to expect.
“You can never really understand it until you feel it in the first
game like that,” forward Nick Paul said Friday. “They definitely have speed throughout their lineup, and they love to go on the attack and hunt. They make good reads whether they’re trying to dump pucks or when to try and carry it, so you’ve constantly got to be pushing yourself to have a good gap to force them to get the puck out of their hands.”
What to do with the puck was a big focus for each team during practice Friday. After star defenseman Cale Makar failed to put a shot on goal for the first time all playoffs, despite being one of the NHL’s best at doing so, the Avalanche must figure to find a way to put more rubber on Tampa Bay goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
They were expecting the Lightning to block a lot of shots, and they did by getting in front of 25 in Game 1. There will be some adjustments, but don’t expect Colorado players to be hesitant about shooting.
Notable
The Avalanche could be getting one of their injured forwards back after veteran Andrew Cogliano was a full participant in practice and skated on the fourth line. Cogliano missed the series opener after injuring a finger blocking a shot with his right hand in the Western Conference final-clinching victory against Edmonton on June 6.
The chairman of the Nashville Predators agreed to sell the majority of his stake in the NHL team to former Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam. The Predators announced the agreement Friday. No details of the purchase price were disclosed for a franchise valued recently at $680 million by Sportico. Haslam’s brother owns the NFL’s Cleveland Browns and the MLS’ Columbus Crew.
Vegas announced that veteran defenseman Shea Weber was acquired in a trade with Montreal for forward Evgenii Dadonov. Weber, 36, did not appear in a game with the Canadiens last season due to multiple lower-body injuries and will remain on injured reserve.