TAMPA, Fla. -- In the space of 72 hours, we have seen the Tampa Bay Lightning crumble in the face of pressure, promise to be better and then deliver the goods in the face of significant adversity.
Talk about learning this whole Stanley Cup finals business on the fly.
After losing their grip on Game 1 late in the third period, the Lightning were the ones who survived an emotional, topsy-turvy Game 2, sneaking by the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 to even this finals series at one game apiece.
They won a game they had to win in spite of once again allowing a couple of Chicago goals to erase a 1-0 lead, this time in the second period, and they won a game they had to win in spite of a chaotic stretch in the third period that saw starting netminder Ben Bishop leave the game, return and then leave for good, thrusting backup Andrei Vasilevskiy into the inferno.
But the 20-year-old from Tyumen, Russia, was rock solid for the 9:19 he played. And while he stopped the only five shots he faced, he made a number of key saves to preserve the victory.
“The kid is a good goaltender,” said the Lightning's Cedric Paquette, the third-line center who scored the opening goal of the game Saturday. “He was ready to play. I think he made some great saves. That’s it."
It is unknown what ails Bishop -- there was some suggestion of dehydration and he did get knocked by Antoine Vermette -- but it was merely one of a handful of twists and turns in a game that lived up to the final series’ billing of a test of skill and speed versus skill and speed.
The bottom line when you play that kind of game with a team like the Blackhawks is that you are going to have to belt yourself in for the roller coaster of emotion that comes with it.
The Lightning weren’t quite prepared for that in Game 1, trying to rope-a-dope their way to a low-scoring win.
And when the Blackhawks tied Game 2 and then went ahead with goals by Andrew Shaw and Teuvo Teravainen 2:16 apart in the second period, you wondered if Chicago was simply too much for this Lightning team, if all the talk about learning lessons and committing to being better, different, was hollow.
But head coach Jon Cooper said there was no panic on the bench when the Blackhawks took the lead, but rather a team that was, in his view, "pissed off."
"Our guys wouldn’t be denied," Cooper said. "There was a fire on that bench when that happened. It wasn’t panic, it was pissed, and you’ve got to love that in your team."
It’s so easy to suggest a team has qualities like character or perseverance, but already trailing a game in the finals and having hit a bit of a lull in a fast-paced game, the Lightning didn’t flinch.
They countered.
Just 1:32 after the Blackhawks had taken the lead, Nikita Kucherov neatly deflected a Jason Garrison point shot past netminder Corey Crawford to tie the game.
The goal was one of two scored by the Lightning’s vaunted "Triplets" line, a line that had been noticeably absent from the score sheet in recent games. Indeed Tyler Johnson, the overall leading point producer and goal scorer in the playoffs with 22 points and 13 goals, was mired in a five-game goalless drought until he somehow wedged a shot between Crawford and the post in the second period to restore the Lightning lead at 3-2.
“Well, I thought we were a lot more aggressive today than we were in Game 1,” Johnson said. “I thought, Game 1, we were a little bit hesitant making plays. That kind of added on not being able to execute. So I thought tonight's game was a lot better from the line."
Even though the Blackhawks outshot the Lightning 10-2 in the third period, it didn’t feel the same as Game 1, when the Blackhawks had an easy time gaining the zone against the Lightning.
"Well, we expected a fast pace, especially with this team,” said Chicago captain Jonathan Toews, who earned his first point of the series setting up Brent Seabrook, who blasted a shot past Bishop early in the third period. “We know we can play at that pace, there’s nothing wrong with that. It was a good game tonight, it was back and forth. We let them get a little too comfortable with their rush game in the second and gave up a few too many of those odd-man rushes and some high-quality scoring chances.”
Seabrook's goal was another moment that could have spelled doom for the Lightning but did not.
Replays of the goal seemed to show Marian Hossa jamming his stick into Bishop’s left pad just as the shot was taken.
The Lightning complained, but the play was not reviewable under current rules and the goal stood.
A lesser team might have allowed that call to disrupt its focus or test its confidence.
But a little over five minutes later, Garrison’s power-play blast deflected off a Chicago defender and past Crawford for the game winner.
“I’ve said this many times, this team is learning the Stanley Cup playoffs on the job,” Cooper said. “I think what happened to us the other night was a lesson learned."
The series now shifts to Chicago for Games 3 and 4 on Monday and Wednesday.
Cooper was cryptically quiet on Bishop’s status.
“Before we get going, I hate to be that guy, I know I talk way too much when I get up here, but I won't answer a question about the goaltending and what happened tonight,” Cooper said. “I apologize for that."
It’s believed Bishop was suffering from dehydration-related issues and walked out of Amalie Arena under his own steam as the team prepared to travel to Chicago.
But maybe it won’t matter whether it’s Bishop or Vasilevskiy in Game 3, just as it didn’t matter down the stretch in Game 2.
And that’s the intriguing quality of this Lightning team, no?
When they were supposed to fade in the face of history at Madison Square Garden in Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, they thumbed their noses at Henrik Lundqvist and that history to shut down the Rangers.
When it looked like they might fade in Game 2 in the face of a host of obstacles, they thumbed their collective noses at all of it to tie the series.
"It's the character that we have on this team, the leadership group that we have, and the ability for guys to step up and realize the situation,” said Tampa captain Steven Stamkos, who was held without a point and played 18:46, more than the 17:17 he logged in Game 1 when his ice time became an off-day storyline.
“Guys played committed. We knew what we had to do,” the captain said. "There was no panic tonight. Even when we were down, we knew if we'd stuck with it, we'd give ourselves a chance and we did that."
