![]() ![]() The Bolts will take on each team in their division four times with the exceptions of Toronto and Ottawa, which they will play three times. The Lightning will play all teams in the NHL a minimum of two times. Worryingly, the first of those on Saturday, must come in Tampa.VIEW THE FULL 2022-23 REGULAR SEASON SCHEDULE Now down three-games-to-two again, they need two straight wins. They came back twice against the Hurricanes in the next round, and won another Game 7. ![]() The Rangers came back from three-games-to-one down against the Penguins, finally winning in overtime in Game 7. And despite the deflating loss, the Rangers are not technically dead yet. The year has been a success for the Rangers, who are coming off a tear-down and rebuild that had led them to miss the playoffs the previous four seasons, and a conference final is overachievement. It’s tough to lose like that at the end, but it was a good hockey game. “It was one of those games it was a defensive battle,” said Rangers coach Gerard Gallant, saying Shesterkin had been screened and not seen either the first or second goal. (A postgame brouhaha - starring Steven Stamkos and Alexis Lafrenière - led to six more that were too late to have an effect on the final score.) The Rangers were called for just two in-game penalties and the Lightning one. Kreider’s power-play prowess - he led the league in man-advantage goals - was limited by the nearly whistle-free game. It too was unassisted: a high shot nearly from the blue line that sailed waist-high past at least three Rangers as well as Corey Perry of the Lightning camped in the crease, then most importantly Shesterkin, who could do nothing. Tampa Bay’s answer came at 17:34 of the second, and it was somehow even more unlikely.ĭefenseman Mikhail Sergachev scored his first goal of the playoffs. A one-goal lead is a slender reed, even at the Garden. Instead it went in.īut if New York expected that drawing first blood would crack the game open, it was mistaken. Defenseman Ryan Lindgren scored for his first point of the series and second goal of the playoffs via a speculative flick from near the boards that maybe was intended for a deflection. The Rangers finally got theirs at 10:29 of the second period not from dominance, but almost from happenstance. Every time (and there were many) that there was a face-off in the Lightning end, there was the sense that this would be the moment the Rangers finally broke through.īut dominance doesn’t count unless you score a goal. The Lightning at times in the early going looked less like the two-time defending champions and more like a team awed by the occasion. And this came from a Rangers team that had been outshot, 153-127, in the first four games. His counterpart Igor Shesterkin was called upon to save just three. New York fired off eight shots, and Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy saved them all. The pace was fast, and the first period was free-flowing and penalty free.ĭisquietingly for the Rangers, who clearly had the upper hand, it was also goal free. Seemingly infused with energy from their venerable arena, they played from the opening face-off with an authority and crispness missing in Tampa. The Rangers started the night promisingly. And all the more frustrating because the key Tampa goals came not entirely from the power trio of Steven Stamkos, Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat, but also from an unlikely defenseman taking a couple of low-percentage shots. So when the Lightning ended the magic with a 3-1 victory at the Garden on Thursday night, it was a hammer blow. After all, the team was 8-1 at home in the playoffs, its only loss coming in triple overtime in the very first game against the Pittsburgh Penguins. Though they were facing the two-time defending champion Tampa Bay Lightning, and though they had needed seven games to advance from each of the first two rounds of the playoffs, the Rangers always had a trump card in their pocket: Fortress Madison Square Garden.Įven after losing two games in Tampa to allow the Lightning to tie the series, there was an unshakable sense of confidence in Rangerland coming into Game 5. ![]()
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