Lightning sacrifice
Players block shots to get through Game 2 battle vs. Panthers
SUNRISE — Tampa Bay Lightning forward Brandon Hagel laid it all on the ice when he knelt in front of a shot from Florida’s Brandon Montour at the blue line early in the third period Tuesday night.
Tied at 1-1, Hagel wasn’t taking chances. He blocked the shot after the Panthers won the face-off and was slow to get up. When he finally got back on his skates, he hobbled to the bench with a helpful push from Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh.
Immediately, Hagel fell into the arms of assistant athletic trainer Mike Poirier and equipment manager Colten Wilson.
But Hagel wasn’t the only one in the tunnel. As he was helped down the hallway, he passed captain Steven Stamkos, who had made his way down just over a minute prior after blocking a shot.
The Lightning tunnel was the NHL’s version of a fashion runway — as one player went down, another came back up. Corey Perry, Erik Cernak, Mikhail Sergachev, Stamkos and Hagel all took their turns walking the padded black matting to fix the nicks and bumps endured throughout the game.
Their sacrifices weren’t in vain, as the team took a 2-1 win over the Panthers, cementing a 2-0 series lead before Sunday’s Game 3 at Amalie Arena. Now, with two days off, there’s time to recover.
“That’s just the sacrifice at this time of the year,” Stamkos said. “Everyone’s doing it no matter the situation in the game. It’s contagious.”
The expectations have been set from the start. During Game 1, Cernak missed the entire third period after blocking Montour’s shot late in the second. That same night, McDonagh became the NHL’s all-time shot blocker in the playoffs.
On Thursday, Perry fired off a shot during warmups that ricocheted off the crossbar and hit him in the head, resulting in stitches near his right eye. Then, Stamkos blocked a pair of shots — one to his shin and another to his hand — that took him back to the locker room.
One by one, they went down the tunnel. And one by one, they came back.
The Lightning registered 24 blocked shots on Florida in Thursday’s win, with Cernak blocking a game-high 4 and McDonagh blocking 3. By the end of regulation, 14 of Tampa Bay’s 18 skaters contributed to the stat sheet by blocking at least 1 shot.
“Last year was a great example,” assistant coach Rob Zettler said. “You go through some of our games, our clinching games, and you literally saw guys blocking shots left and right.
“You see guys get excited for a teammate that does that and they know that next time they’re going to have to do the same thing.”
It’s why it was easy for Hagel — who joined the Lightning in late March just before the trade deadline — to make that choice to turn his body in the third period, taking a vulnerable position in front of Montour. And for Hagel, it was even easier to come back up the tunnel to the bench.
“It’s the playoffs,” Hagel said. “You want to go out there and win. It probably doesn’t feel good, but you have a couple of days to rest and go from there.”
It’s a contagious attitude to show up in those kinds of moments, Hagel said, especially on the road.
“The crowd’s on the other side, but to gain energy on the bench, get guys on their feet, get guys picking guys up, it feels good,” Hagel said. “It almost feels better than scoring a goal.”