NEW YORK – The Rangers won the second game of the Eastern Conference Finals and ended an NHL record streak for the Tampa Bay Lightning in the process.
The two-time Stanley Cup champions had won 18 games in a row after a defeat in the Stanley Cup playoffs, the last consecutive games they lost in April 2019. These defeats occurred during a sweep of the Columbus Blue Jackets. , which was the last time the Lightning fell. 2-0 in a series before the Rangers’ 3-2 win Friday night at Madison Square Garden gave them consecutive wins to start the conference final.
“It’s been a fun trip in terms of response after the losses of the last two years,” said captain Steven Stamkos. “It shows the character of this group. It’s the hardest trophy to win. You’ll run into adverse moments. This is definitely one of them.”
Coach Jon Cooper did not see the end of the streak as a debilitating move for his team.
“At some point, you’ll lose two in a row in the playoffs,” he said. “The fact that we don’t have it in a few years is remarkable. You could take a second here and say, ‘A job, guys.’ “He left us out of the playoffs. Didn’t he? We have a hill to climb? No doubt. I don’t have it. I don’t think I’m being the obvious Captain saying that. .
The Lightning players after the 2nd game said that the loss was due to a bad execution on their part. Too many east-west plays and not enough north-south offense. Too much dust loss that resulted in the Rangers’ chances. Allowing New York to control the puck for about half of the competition, before Lightning found its game and a sense of urgency in the third period.
Cooper said his team’s lack of urgency in the first two periods was not because, deep down, the players knew they could turn to the historic success of the streak.
“I’ll be honest – this is the first time I’ve talked about the streak,” he said. “Nobody has talked about it. We know it has happened, but it has never been talked about in our group. There is no way our team can trust ‘we don’t lose two in a row’.”
“We didn’t manage the record. It was blatant what was happening, from the first to the middle of the second. It’s not like that. [the] game plan. It’s not what [the Rangers] they are doing. You have to manage the disk and we didn’t. “
Lightning first came on board thanks to power-play goal from winger Nikita Kucherov. Ryan Reaves of the Rangers and Pat Maroon of the Lightning physically came out of the confrontation, but only Reaves received a penalty. Kucherov’s shot through goalkeeper Igor Shesterkin was his fifth of the playoffs at 2:41.
New York responded 3:18 later, while defender K’Andre Miller picked up his own rebound and shot the puck ahead of Andrei Vasilevskiy for the equalizer. The Rangers took a 2-1 lead at the end of the first round thanks to Kid Line, their trio of outstanding youngsters that has propelled them into the postseason, working in concert with star defender Adam Fox.
Striker Alexis Lafreniere passed the puck to Fox, who was parked just meters from the Lightning fold. He faked a shot to send defender Jan Rutta out before sending a perfect pass to striker Kaapo Kakko for a desertion goal, his second in the playoffs.
The Rangers advanced to the second period and took advantage of the play but could not add a third goal. Central Mika Zibanejad remedied it just 1:21 into the third period, deflecting a shot from the post and behind Vasilevskiy for his ninth in the playoffs. The goal tied Zibanejad with three more players in the longest home goal streak (6) in the last 30 seasons.
Nick Paul’s goal at 17:58 in the third period with Vasilevskiy shot cut the lead, but Shesterkin helped close the door with 13 stops in the third period and 29 for the game.
One of the promoters of the Lightning streak was Vasilevskiy, who went 18-0 with an average of 1.49 goals against, a .942 save percentage and five whites. He has now scored three goals in all three games after losing this postseason.
Teams taking a 2-0 lead in a best-of-7 series have a 340-53 (.865) series record, including a 3-1 (.750) mark in the 2022 playoffs. Stamkos went to console with that defeat of the series: the return of the Rangers on the Carolina Hurricanes in the previous round.
“We just have to look at the team we play and how they got here,” he said. “Down two zippers in his last series. Down 3-1 in the first round. The recipe is there.”
Game 3 is Sunday afternoon in Tampa.