LIGHTNING STRIKES
Tampa manhandles Wings to even series; Tarasenko’s hat trick lifts Blues over Wild,
TAMPA, FLA.— The Tampa Bay Lightning flexed a little bit of muscle, then went to work on leveling their NHL playoff series against the Detroit Red Wings.
Ben Bishop had 23 saves and Tyler Johnson scored two goals, one of them on a power play while two teammates were in the penalty box for roughing, and the Lightning rebounded for a 5-1 victory Saturday in Game 2 of their opening-round Eastern Conference series.
The best-of-seven series shifts to Detroit for Game 3 on Tuesday, with the Red Wings searching for answers on how to generate more scoring opportunities against Bishop.
“We played physical, we played hard, and finally the hard work paid off,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said.
A big scrum along the boards in front of the Lightning bench led to Stamkos and teammate, Brian Boyle, being sent to the penalty box, along with Detroit’s Danny DeKeyser and Kyle Quincey, the latter drawing a four-minute penalty for tussling with Stamkos.
“We’re just sticking up for each other. We’ve done that all year. That’s been a characteristic of this team,” Stamkos said. “Whether it had an effect on the game . . . obviously, (Johnson) was nice to get it going on the power play there.”
Johnson scored just over three minutes into the game, giving Tampa Bay its first lead of the series. He beat goal Petr Mrazek again to finish a three-goal flurry that put Tampa Bay up 4-0 after two periods.
“It was a little bit more physical, but that’s the way it’s supposed to be this time of year,” Detroit captain Henrik Zetterberg said. “Nothing really surprised me.”
Bishop lost his bid for a shutout when Detroit’s Tomas Tatar scored at 5:49 of the third period. The six- foot-seven goalie won a career-best 40 games during the regular season and is one of the reasons the Lightning feel good about their chances of making a deep run in the playoffs. “We thought we played well enough in the first game to win and we didn’t, so it was important to come out and play like we did,” Bishop said. “Obviously, it’s going to be a little tougher in Detroit, but we’re looking forward to it. It should be fun.”
Despite the loss, the Red Wings return home feeling fortunate the series is tied at one game apiece. They did not play particularly well in the opener, but coach Mike Babcock felt the team elevated its play Saturday.
“I thought we were way better, for sure. You look up and you’re down 4-1, and you think you’ve done a lot of good things,” Babcock said. “But you can’t make big mistakes. It just goes to show you, you’ve got to keep it out of your net first and score second.”
Mrazek was superb in his playoff debut with 44 saves in the opener, but couldn’t replicate that success, stopping just 14 of 18 shots in the first two periods before being replaced by Jimmy Howard.
The Red Wings said it wasn’t the 23-year-old’s fault.
“I think Pete played pretty good. We gave up some slam dunks to them,” Babcock said. “You’ve got to give your goalie a chance. You can’t make those defensive mistakes and then think your goalie’s going to make those saves. If you give him a chance to battle, he’ll battle.”