Lightning ready for Game 7 fight
The Lightning haven’t lost consecutive postseason games in over two years and haven’t faced a winner-take-all challenge since 2018.
That may speak to how difficult they’ve been to beat in the playoffs lately. Neither streak will mean anything when the defending Stanley Cup champions face the Islanders in Game 7 of the NHL semifinals on Friday night.
“You get to a Game 7, you know what’s at stake. You play all year to get to this point,” Islanders coach Barry Trotz said. “You get one opportunity.”
The Lightning are 13-0 in games following a playoff loss since beginning of last year’s title run, including an 8-0 rout of the Islanders in Game 5.
The Islanders evened the series at three games apiece by overcoming a two-goal deficit in a 3-2 overtime victory on Wednesday.
And while the Lightning have been as resilient as any team the last two postseasons, coach Jon Cooper and his players aren’t taking anything for granted in their bid to become the first repeat champions since the Penguins in 2016 and 2017.
“I love the way our team has responded in the playoffs after losses. But you can’t hang your hat on that and say we haven’t lost in the playoffs in the last two years after a loss, or we’ve won every game in the last two years after a loss, so we’re going to win,” Cooper said. “That’s a faulty mindset.”
The Lightning finds themselves in a winner-take-all Game 7 for the first time since the 2018 Eastern Conference final, where they lost at home to the Trotz-led Capitals.
“I think you’re going to have two focused teams, Game 7 with a chance to go to the Stanley Cup,” Trotz said.
Golf: Satoshi Kodaira and Kramer Hickok each shot a PGA Tour career-best 7-under 63 to share the first-round lead Thursday in the Travelers Championship. Talor Gooch was a stroke behind Hickok after the morning rounds. Kodaira took the lead at 8 under in the afternoon after making the turn onto the front nine birdie-eagle-birdie, but a bogey on the par-3 eighth dropped him back into a tie with Hickok. Defending champion Dustin Johnson stumbled at the start with a bogey on the second hole and then a double on No. 3. He finished with a pair of birdies to end the day at 70 at TPC River Highlands.
NFL: The Steelers on Thursday released six-time Pro Bowl guard David DeCastro in a surprise move. The 31-year-old DeCastro attended the team’s mandatory minicamp last week but did not participate in fullteam drills. DeCastro was entering the final season of a five-year $50-million contract he signed in 2017 . ... The NFL is bringing back alternate helmets in 2022, ending a nine-year hiatus that started because of concerns about player safety. The league wrote to clubs in a memo dated Thursday that it must be notified of plans to use alternate helmets by July 31 even though they won’t be used for another year. The use of a second helmet was dropped in 2013 over concerns that wearing more than one helmet might not be safe for players. As those concerns have eased, clubs have lobbied for a second helmet because options for alternate jerseys were expanded in 2018, the league said.