LIGHTNING STRIKES BACK TO CONQUER BLUE JACKETS
High-powered Tampa Bay grinds it out to avenge last year’s shocking early exit
Jon Cooper sat down and smiled. “It’s funny how the hockey gods work,” the Tampa Bay Lightning head coach said minutes after his team had defeated the Columbus Blue Jackets 5-4 in overtime to advance to the second round of the Stanley Cup playoffs.
Funny? That’s one way of describing how Tampa Bay and Columbus ended up locking horns in the first round again. It was also somewhat fitting.
This was the rematch many hockey fans had wanted to see. Now that it’s over — and Tampa Bay got revenge in a 4-1 series win — Cooper can admit that he wanted it just as badly.
“You know, it’s easy to sit up here and say, ‘You wanted (to play Columbus) now.’ But it was good to get them and good to get this result,” said Cooper. “We want to advance, regardless of who we’re playing. It just turned out we get a second chance. Oftentimes you don’t get that second chance. And it’s what you do with it. We’ve given the players the framework. But in the end, they rose to the occasion. And I couldn’t be more proud of them.”
A year ago, Columbus had unexpectedly swept Tampa
Bay in a first-round series that shocked the hockey world. It was an embarrassing loss. The Lightning were by far the best team in the NHL. They had the best forward in the NHL, the best goalie in the NHL, and a defenceman who was a runner-up for the Norris Trophy.
They were supposed to go all the way and win the Stanley
Cup. Instead, they lost to an eighth-seeded team that had barely made the playoffs.
How did it happen? Well, that’s been the question that has kept Cooper up all night for most of the past year. Some criticized Tampa Bay for an imbalance of too much skill and not enough grit to win in the playoffs. Others believed that they lacked leadership or big-game goaltending or heart.
There was a lot of second guessing.
“We had a good 422 days to think about it,” said Cooper. “But who’s counting?”
More time had actually passed since then. Nearly 500 days. Not that anyone is counting. The important thing for the Lightning was that they put the time to good use. This was a different looking team than Columbus had played a year ago. And not just from a roster perspective.
While the additions of Pat Maroon, Blake Coleman and Barclay Goodrow gave Tampa Bay a physical component that was missing a year ago, it was the team’s overall mindset that changed. There was growth to their game.
The Lightning are still one of the most offensive teams in the league. But as they showed for most of the series, they were just as comfortable playing the grinding, physical, tight-scoring game the Blue Jackets used against them a year ago. With Steven Stamkos missing from the lineup because of an injury, playing that way was essential.
Tampa Bay didn’t try to blow Columbus out of the water. They didn’t get frustrated when Columbus goalie Joonas Korpisalo made save after ridiculous save. They just kept competing and kept trying to play the right way.
“A lot of learning went into last year,” said Cooper. “We had to grow as a team. We didn’t necessarily need to tweak how we played the game. I don’t know if it was as much on structure as it was between the ears. And all of us collectively, from the coaching staff all the way down, had to be a little harder, we had to be better and we had to train ourselves to play a little bit of a different way. And we did.”
Tampa Bay was the more patient team in a brutal, five-OT win in Game 1. The 3-1 and 2-1 wins in Game 3 and 4, respectively, were defensive gems. And while Game 5 was a high-scoring roller-coaster of momentum swings and lead changes, the fact that the Lightning erased a two-goal lead in the third period and then won the game on another Brayden Point overtime goal showed a level of maturity and resiliency that had been missing a year ago.
“Well, I think last year if we learned anything, it’s that they’re a great team,” said Point, who has five goals and 10 points in eight post-season games. “They’re a hardworking defensive team that capitalizes on mistakes — and no different this year. I thought a lot of those games could have went either way, and good for our group that we came out on top.”
Indeed, the rest of the playoffs won’t get any easier for the Lightning. The team, which finished with the second-best record in the East, could see Boston next. But, like Washington’s win over Pittsburgh a couple of years ago en route to winning the Cup, trading punches with a team like Columbus was a necessary hump they needed to get over.
“We’ll certainly be ready when Round 2 comes,” said Point.
“We obviously can’t prepare for anyone yet — we don’t know who it’s going to be. But I think the thing we always worry about is ourselves first.” mtraikos@postmedia.com
All of us collectively ... had to be a little harder, we had to be better and we had to train ourselves to play a little bit of a different way. And we did.