Lightning show heart in marathon victory
The Tampa Bay Lightning were exhausted.
They had played more than six hours of hockey, but when the puck hit the back of the net, the bench exploded. An eight-period game is a lot easier to handle when you win.
“They’re still a bunch of kids,” coach Jon Cooper said. “They compete. … They get damn excited when they score, especially when they score in the fifth overtime.”
Brayden Point figures this is probably the biggest goal of his career. And he said he wasn’t even aiming and just threw the bouncing puck on net.
But Columbus goalie Joonas Korpisalo wasn’t letting anything get in easily in overtime, and Point placed the shot toward the top shelf to finally end the game late Tuesday.
The Lightning and Blue Jackets just can’t help making history in the playoffs. Last year, it was the historic sweep of the No. 1 team by the 16th. This year they opened up with the fourthlongest game in Stanley Cup playoffs history.
Tampa Bay and Columbus played almost two games’ worth of hockey between goals — 110 minutes, 4 seconds in hockey time and more than four hours on the real-life clock — between Yanni Gourde tying it up early in the third period and the game-winner.
“You have to focus on your next shift and not the end result,” Point said.
Cooper said the Lightning stressed focusing on the little things — “all the things that aren’t flashy” — as it became a game of who was going to blink first.
Both goalies, but Korpisalo in particular, can be thanked or blamed for the length of the game.
He faced 88 shots and set a Stanley Cup playoffs record by saving 85 of them. Andrei Vasilevskiy made 61 saves, which would have been a jaw-dropping number if his teammates hadn’t been piling on at the other end.
Nikita Kucherov had the best chance to end the game late in the first overtime. Ondrej Palat set him up with a wide-open side of the net, Kucherov’s shot went wide.
The day started as one of bounces and deflections.
Pierre-Luc Dubois scored the first goal in the first period, but only in so much as Alex Texier’s shot bounced off him.
Point tied the score in the same fashion four minutes later.
Victor Hedman’s shot didn’t make it all the way to net. Kucherov jumped on the puck and fired off a shot that deflected off Point’s leg.