ALL EVEN IN THE EAST
Johnson scores three as Lightning erupt on power play
Tyler Johnson’s hat trick sparks Lightning to Game 2 win over Rangers.
NEW YORK— Finally. Finally a game that swung and sloshed and whistled around the place like someone let off fireworks, where goals happened and then happened again. Finally, some leashes were slipped and mistakes were made and the game felt like something that could spin out of control, one way or the other. Hockey’s fun, when it does that.
The Eastern Conference has spent most of the playoffs playing 2-1 games or games that resembled 2-1 games, and the New York Rangers had all but perfected the art. You can play an exciting 2-1 game, but play 10 of ’em and the thrill dissipates, somewhat. Game 2 of the Eastern Conference final wasn’t that, though. No, it wasn’t that. Instead, Tampa scored six times, just twice at even strength, and blew a wild game open on the power play to win 6-2 and tie the series 1-1, going back to Florida. There was pace, skill, and a gift basket’s worth of mistakes, which allowed skilled players space to do something. The coaches will gnash their teeth and try to fix it, which is why I’d be thrilled to ban coaches from the bench during games. Or practices. Either way, we got a game that felt less like a race to a coin-flip goal than a swashbuckling ride, until it spiralled out of reach midway through the third. That was fun.
It was all penalties to start, and Tyler Johnson.
It had only been a day since Jon Cooper had asked for someone to chip in, anyone. His Tampa Bay Lightning scored one goal in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference finals against the New York Rangers, and the whirling line of Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov had accounted for 18 of the team’s 34 goals overall. “We’re going to need more than the triplets to score,” Cooper said. Well, never mind. With the Rangers on a 5-on-3 Rangers forward Martin St. Louis caught a skate just as Dan Boyle put a pass off his other skate, and Johnson took off. What a sight. A dangerous player, open ice, five Rangers and two Lightning skaters behind him. It looked like . . . freedom. Johnson was stopped on the breakaway by Henrik Lundqvist, but swiped at the puck and it crossed the line before St. Louis barrelled into the post and knocked the net off.
It also crossed milliseconds before Brian Boyle left the box at 5:38, so it was the rare 3-on-5 short-handed goal, the first in the league in at least three years.
And then they were off. New York’s Chris Kreider scored on a subsequent Rangers power play, and Johnson replied on another Tampa power play — no, not that one, another one — beating Lundqvist from the left faceoff circle, a little gunfight, slicing the puck into the V between the Rangers goalie’s glove and shoulder.
The three first-period goals came in a span of five minutes, 37 seconds. Since it was 2-1, everyone agreed that was enough and we should all go home.
Good match, everyone.
For some reason, though, they played on, and the diminutive, undrafted, unstoppable Johnson kept coming. Marc Staal fell down at the Tampa blue line and Johnson and Palat took off again, and this time Palat hit a post and Johnson poked the puck in through the tangle of limbs and skates and sticks in the blue paint. 3-1.
New York had allowed at least three goals twice in their previous 13 playoff games, to entire teams. Johnson did it in a little over 28 minutes. Johnson became the first player with four multi-goal games in a single playoff year since Jamie Langenbrunner in 2003, and the first Lightning player with a playoff hat trick in franchise history.
But that didn’t mean it was over, oh no. Derek Stepan banked in a goal off a sliding Braydon Coburn on a Rangers power play with 5:43 left in the second period, and all hell started to break loose. The Rangers hit the gas and hammered at the Lightning, hemming them at one end, opening up the throttle. Victor Hedman had to save a goal after a Bishop screwup handling the puck by sliding across an open crease.
Tampa held on to the end of the period, and only had a one-goal lead entering the third, with everyone trying to catch their breath. But Tampa scored two more power-play goals in the third for a mir- ror image of the Lightning’s 6-2 Game 2 win over Montreal. It was the fifth time all season Lundqvist had allowed at least five goals in a game, the third time against Tampa, and the first time since Dec. 1 against the Lightning. He’s human, if you do enough things right.
So, we have a series, if one that hasn’t settled into a rhythm yet. A couple weeks ago I asked a hockey man why so many penalties were let go in the playoffs and was told, because they can’t call 400 interference calls a night. Well, calls were made Monday night, and mistakes were, too. Mistakes, for the record, are much more fun. Nobody let the coaches fix this too much, and let’s do this again sometime soon.