Eliminating Bruins won’t be easy feat

The Tampa Bay Lightning have a chance to close out their second series in five games. A win on Monday and they’ll secure a spot in the Eastern Conference final by eliminating the Bruins.

The team is where it was 12 days ago against the Blue Jackets, heading into a deciding Game 5 with an advantage.

“They’re not going to go quietly into the night,” coach Jon Cooper said. “You have to make them go.”

There’s no hockey like desperate hockey. Players comment all the time, even after a regular-season game, that one team played with more desperation. Nothing brings that out like the prospect of heading home.

The Lightning knocked the Bruins out in five games in the 2018 Eastern Conference semifinals. Then they were dismissed by Washington the next round.

Boston knows a thing or two about deep runs. Last year the Bruins made it to Game 7 of the Stanley Cup Finals before losing to St. Louis. They have four players from their 2011 Cup champion team: Brad Marchand, Zdeno Chara, Patrice Bergeron and David Krejci. Add Torey Krug to that for players from the 2013 Cup final.

Cooper said Game 5 is all about the start. The Lightning have done that well the past two games, scoring first and holding onto the lead.

In the first-round Game 5, the Lightning came out strong and took a 2-0 lead over Columbus.

But then they allowed four straight goals and had to come back to force overtime. They came out with the win, courtesy of Brayden Point, but it wasn’t smooth.

Elimination games rarely are.

“You get everybody’s best shot in elimination games,” Cooper said.

The Lightning were expecting a version of the Bruins’ best in Game 4. The Bruins had called their Game 3 showing, a 7-1 Lightning romp, embarrassing, so Tampa Bay figured on a big early push from Boston.

That didn’t manifest on Saturday, though. It was the Lightning who set the tone early and mostly maintained control of the game.

The series flipped with the Lightning’s overtime win in Game 2.

The Bruins, against whom the Lightning typically play close games, haven’t seemed the same since.

The difference between facing a two-game deficit in a series and pulling out an overtime win to tie it goes a long way.

ELSA/GETTY The Lightning celebrate a 3-1 victory against the Bruins in Game 4 of the Eastern Conference second-round playoff series Saturday at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto. The Lightning lead the series 3-1.