Tampa Bay advances to 3rd straight Cup Final
No matter the sport, winning back-to-back championships titles is rare because it’s so hard. Injuries, egos, contract demands and the salary cap often derail second title runs.
The Tampa Bay Lightning, though, are one step away from something even harder: winning the Stanley Cup three times in a row, something that hasn’t been accomplished in the NHL in nearly four decades.
On Saturday, the twotime champion Lightning beat the New York Rangers 2-1 in Tampa, Fla., to win the Eastern Conference finals and return to the Stanley Cup Final, where they will face the Colorado Avalanche starting Wednesday in Denver. Tampa’s longtime captain Steven Stamkos scored both Lightning goals, with the game-winner coming late in the third period.
The Lightning won the series in convincing fashion, dominating the Rangers in the clinching game, overcoming a two-game deficit and winning the last four games of the series outscoring the Rangers 12-5. The Lightning and their seasoned veterans committed few errors, which kept the Rangers’ top-ranked power play off the ice. The young Rangers, in the playoffs for the first time in five seasons, failed to score at even strength in the last four games of the series.
“We know we didn’t play our best the first two,” Stamkos said after the game as his teammates celebrated around him on home ice. “They were executing, we weren’t.”
But, he said, “there’s no panic with this team. The hardest thing to do is to win a championship. We know what it takes.”
The score and the shots on goal were deceivingly close, and the statistics would have been more lopsided if not for the brilliant play of Rangers goalie Igor Shesterkin. The Lightning had far more quality scoring chances, and the Rangers looked deflated after a disheartening loss in Game 5 in New York on Thursday.
While Shesterkin desperately tried to keep the Rangers in the game, his counterpart, Tampa goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, was hardly tested. He won his eighth consecutive clinching game, including six shutouts.
Tampa has now won 11 straight playoff series.
The Lightning were the far sharper team from start to finish. They skated quickly, made sharp passes and scooped up errant passes by the Rangers. They peppered Shesterkin and attempted 25 shots in the first period while the Rangers attempted only 12.
Shesterkin held Tampa at bay, even cleaning up his own mess. After an attempt to clear the puck was intercepted by Riley Nash of the Lightning, he stopped a tip-in by his teammate Patrick Maroon. He used his right pad to stop a tip-in attempt by Pierre-Édouard Bellemare and denied Anthony Cirelli on a breakaway.
The second period started the same as the first, with Tampa on the offensive and Shesterkin keeping the puck out of the net. He robbed Nikita Kucherov, Tampa’s top scorer, when he tried to backhand the puck past him.
After all the great stops by Shesterkin, Tampa finally scored when Stamkos raced past a injured center Ryan Strome and fired a wrist shot from the top of the circle. It was Stamkos’ eighth goal of the playoffs.
The Rangers finally scored on a power play when Stamkos was called for holding and Frank Vatrano fired a shot off a faceoff that skidded past Vasilevskiy.
Whatever momentum the Rangers mustered vanished 21 seconds later. Stamkos, coming out of the penalty box, raced toward the net, took a pass from Kucherov and shot the puck. Shesterkin grabbed it with his glove, but the puck ricocheted out and Stamkos’ leg bumped it into the net. After a review, the goal stood.