Well, well, well, Tampa Bay has done it again. The Tampa Bay Lightning have thwarted aside the New York Rangers to be the Eastern Conference’s champion in the Stanley Cup Final. Who would have thought I would be writing this? Huh, what was that? “Everybody“, you say. Yeah, you’re right. It is becoming almost too easy to predict how the NHL playoffs will turn out (at least on the Eastern Conference side).
And it looked easy for the Lightning this game, at least for the first two periods. They absolutely dominated the Rangers those first 40 minutes. It easily could have been 4-0 or 5-0 starting the 3rd period if it was not for Igor Shersterkin. Luckily for the Rangers it was only 1-0 after two as a Stamkos wrister squeaked past Shersterkin from the right hash marks late on in the second.
It was so bad that at one point, the Lightning out chanced the Rangers 12-2 in chance creation. TWELVE would-be-goals to two. By far this was Lightning’s best game of the series.
But, yet again, the Rangers’ Russian netminder proved why his Hart finalist vote was not misplaced. He single-handled kept the Rangers’ hope of one more game at MSG alive throughout those 40 minutes of misery. Shersterkin may not end up as the winner of the Hart, but he truly was the MVP of the New York Rangers this season.
Speaking of Russian goalies who are the MVPs of their team, Andrei Vasilevskiy showed why he is quickly climbing the chart of being one of the best goalies to have ever played this game. Only two goals allowed in the last eight series clinching games is unheard of. I can’t remember the last goalie who has ever been this dominate in elimination games.
Sure, Marty Brodeur, Patrick Roy, Dominik Hasek, and Ken Dryden have played great and led their teams to incredible Stanley Cup victories, but I don’t think any of them have ever played this well this consistently. Well, in truth, perhaps only Ken Dryden of those great, championship winning Montreal Canadiens teams from 1976-79 could boast of such dominance over opposing teams’ forwards.
But even then, Dryden had three Hall of Fame defensemen in front of him (Serge Savard, Larry Robinson, Rod Langway) throughout the Canadiens reign. Vasilevskiy is truly in a class of his own right now.
It was not all Lightning in the 3rd Period, though. New York actually started playing hockey around five minutes into the 3rd, and even got a goal past Vasilevskiy to tie the game at the seven-minute mark. Frank Vatrano rifled off a one-timer from the faceoff to break Vasilevskiy’s shutout. But only 21 seconds later, Steven Stamkos (one of a few future Hall of Famers on this Tampa team) scored his second goal of the game to take all the fight out of the Rangers.
The Rangers were hard pressed to continue playing after his goal, let alone try for a tying goal. And that is how it finished, a 2-1 win for the Lightning to send them to their third straight Stanley Cup Final appearance.
New York was an outsider to win this series in the first place and although they played great to win the first two games, their youth and inexperience with championship-winning hockey was the difference. Don’t worry Rangers fans, they will be back again next season.
However, now it will be Tampa again in the finals against the Colorado Avalanche. The series I’ve been wanting to watch all playoffs long, I can’t wait!
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