Lightning's Dynasty Alive and Well as Tampa Pushes the Rangers to the Brink
NEW YORK — Maybe the Toronto Maple Leafs could have warned the New York Rangers. Or maybe even the Blueshirts' neighbors out on Long Island could have given them some advice considering the seven-game series they played against the Tampa Bay Lightning last season.
When you have the Lightning on the ropes, you have to finish them off.
Instead, it's the Rangers on the ropes after a 3-1 loss to the Bolts in Game 5 of the Eastern Conference Final on Thursday night at Madison Square Garden. Tampa Bay is up 3-2 in the series and can eliminate New York on Saturday night when the series shifts back to Amalie Arena.
The turning point in the series came with just 42 seconds left in Game 3 when Nikita Kucherov set up Ondrej Palat for the game-winner. Thursday night, it once again appeared as though the teams were destined for overtime, but Palat prevented it again, deflecting a Mikhail Sergachev shot in traffic with only 1:50 left to play.
Palat now has 11 game-winning goals in his postseason career, the most in franchise history. A 31-year-old former seventh-round draft pick, Palat has been overlooked at times on a team with so much talent, but he's part of that core group of players that have won two Cups. The depth might have dropped off as the Bolts ran into salary-cap issues last year, but the current iteration is looking just as strong as it goes for a three-peat.
That should tell you all you need to know about a Tampa Bay team that has won 10 straight Stanley Cup Playoff series and the last two Stanley Cup championships: No matter who they lose in the offseason and who they play during the season, they find ways to win.
"We’re here to win a series," Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. "We don’t care when we win it. We just want to win it. The next chance to win it now is Saturday night, and we’ll be ready."
Tampa Bay has effectively taken away all of the Rangers' strengths at five-on-five. The Lightning has pushed them to the outside and eliminated any east-to-west passes; they've neutralized the Rangers' top lin; and while the Kid Line of Filip Chytil, Alexis Lafreniere and Kaapo Kakko played well once again, coach Gerard Gallant to limited their minutes and decided to keep his top two lines out on the ice for the majority of Game 5.
"Just the way I coached the game," Gallant said. "Trying to match up a little bit. They played OK."
But the power play is New York's biggest strength and man-advantage opportunities are out of their hands. There was some questionable officiating and some missed calls, and the Rangers had only a single power play. They did generate chances on that one power-play opportunity, but they couldn't score.
Gallant thought the Blueshirts deserved another call or two, but ultimately he did not criticize the officials.
"I did, I really did," he said. "In saying that, I thought they did an excellent game. They let the teams play enough. I thought we could've had a couple more, there's no doubt."
The Rangers challenged the Lightning in the first period, checking hard and skating hard and putting pressure on goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, but they didn't record a single high-danger chance scoring chance at five-on-five in the second period and they didn't record one until late in the third.
The 5-on-5 woes have plagued them all season, but on this particular night, they were forced to spend so much time defending that they couldn't generate any offense.
"It was a tight game that could have gone either way," New York defenseman Jacob Trouba said. "I think that’s what makes it more frustrating for us. It’s not like we’re getting the doors blown off."
This isn't exactly an unfamiliar position for the Rangers, who got to this point in the postseason by winning two Game 7s. They've kept themselves alive in the playoffs by winning five elimination games.
They're confident that their experience will be beneficial in Game 6.
"We've been down 3-2 every series so far. We have to have a level of desperation," Rangers forward Andrew Copp said. "I think the confidence of doing it before is bigger and better than having to do again. I think there's the belief in the room."
But the problem is that Tampa Bay has them right where they want them. The Rangers are up against a deep, experienced that knows how to step on the throats of their opponents. The Bolts know how to manage their emotions throughout a series and make adjustments on the fly.
They know when to rely on their world-beating goalie and how to produce in the waning seconds of games.
"You prepare for those moments by experience," Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. "You go into those situations, and everybody talks about, 'Hey, you're up a goal, or tied going into the third. How are you going to execute as a team?' We've learned over the years how to do that. It's not being comfortable, that's not the right word. It's so intense that you're not comfortable. You're just confident and you understand what goes on there.
"Our group understands."
The defending champs twice over understand that sometimes all you need to do is throw a puck through traffic and see what happens, much as Sergachev did twice on Thursday night. They didn't beat the Rangers with high-skill plays, but in this case, they didn't need to.
"You have to be able to dance the line. You have to be able to get your shot through with a little bit of substance on it," Cooper said. "You can’t throw a muffin in there and Sergy has that ability."
It's the Lightning: They can beat anyone in any way, and they'll make teams like the Rangers regret not finishing the job early.
