The Tampa Bay Lightning have evened up the Stanley Cup Final at one game a piece after defeating the Chicago Blackhawks 4-3 in Game 2. Jason Garrison’s power play strike in the third period was the difference-maker as Tyler Johnson added to his league-leading goal total to 13. The series heads to Chicago for Games 3 and 4 beginning Monday night.
In Game 1, Harvard-grad Alex Killorn scored on an incredible re-direction 4:31 into the first period to give the Bolts the first goal of the contest, putting Tampa Bay in a good spot historically. This was because of the fact that the Lightning had amassed a 9-0 record when drawing first blood in the 2015 Stanley Cup Playoffs.
Two third-period goals by Chicago in 1:58 shattered that statistic’s perfectness, but Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper had “no regrets” after the game regarding the way he coached his club. When asked about his team’s resiliency, the former lawyer-turned NHL bench-boss had a simple yet stern response:
“I can’t predict what’s going to happen in Game 2, but I know our guys are going to be ready.”
One thing’s for sure, nobody was ready for what would transpire in the upcoming 60 minutes. Although, Tampa Bay would find themselves on the scoreboard first in Saturday’s tilt.
Lightning Lose Bishop, Hold on for Game 2 Win
Cedric Paquette, the 21-year-old whose main job in this series has been to eliminate Blackhawks captain Jonathan Toews offensively, scored his second goal of the postseason at 12:56. After Chicago failed to clear its own zone, Paquette kept the puck at the top of the point and danced around Brandon Saad to fire a wrist shot past the blocker of Corey Crawford.
Crawford’s vision had been taken away by a screening J.T. Brown which allowed Paquette an open lane to shoot towards, hitting twine. The Amalie Arena was packed with a few more Blackhawks fans than Game 1, but it was the hometown crowd that had something to cheer about early on. A late Johnny Oduya tripping infraction would be the only penalty assessed in the opening frame.
After 20 minutes, the Lightning held a 1-0 lead over Chicago, identical to Game 1.
The feeling-out process two teams undergo when facing one another in the Stanley Cup Final usually dissipates after the first couple of periods, but in this series, it was the second period of Game 2 in which both teams loaded up from a scoring standpoint.
With exciting end-to-end action ensuing, it had become a track meet between the Lightning and the Blackhawks in the second set of twenty minutes. Needless to say, several scoring chances were exchanged.
Some impressive board play by Chicago’s fourth line led to Andrew Desjardins letting a shot go from just above the left circle that hit Marcus Kruger and laid in the blue paint beside Lightning netminder Ben Bishop. As Bishop prepared for the initial drive to hit him in the chest, the puck glanced off Kruger and trickled into the crease, where Andrew Shaw was there on the rebound with an easy tap-in to even up the game at one.
Shaw’s fifth goal of the postseason provided a spark under Joel Quenneville’s club that would head to the man-advantage 1:24 after the tying goal. Alex Killorn had hooked Brad Richards on an attempted deflection. On the power play, Teuvo Teravainen was set up beautifully by Marian Hossa in between the two circles. The Finnish forward blasted one past Bishop, with Brandon Saad providing a screen from his knees. At 5:20 of the second period, the Blackhawks had taken their first lead of Game 2.
Two Chicago goals in 2:16 were followed by a Nikita Kucherov deflection off of a Jason Garrison howitzer to tie the game. Make that three goals in 3:48 in total between these two offensively-gifted hockey teams.
Miraculously, there was a sequence of over seven minutes before the next goal was scored.
Tyler Johnson broke a Lightning franchise record with his 13th goal of the playoffs after he stuffed the puck past Crawford at the side of the net at 13:58. The goal wasn’t pretty, but the effort to create the opportunity was. Tampa Bay had regained the lead, and would head into the locker room after two periods with a 3-2 score in their favor.
The third period maintained a high-octane pace, and Brent Seabrook capitalized on an enormous amount of open ice as his slap shot from the slot beat Bishop’s glove, knotting the game up at three just 3:38 into the third period. Seabrook’s seventh goal of the playoffs set a record for most goals by a defenseman in one postseason in Blackhawks franchise history; Chris Chelios had six in 1992.
Just a minute after Seabrook’s tally, Patrick Sharp took a minor penalty for slashing. Chicago killed off the power play, allowing #10 in white to exit the “sin bin.” Just a mere 18 seconds transpired before Sharp found himself back in the penalty box for high-sticking Ryan Callahan.
A lack of discipline from the away team finally caught up to them as Jason Garrison’s shot was inadvertently blocked by Desjardins, creating an absurd bounce that eluded Crawford. Tampa Bay’s first power play goal of the series came at 8:49.
It was now 4-3 in favor of the Bolts, much to the delight of the thunderous Amalie Arena.
However, the majority of the hockey world was discussing Ben Bishop’s brief absence before the goal was scored as 20-year-old Andrei Vasilevskiy was in between the pipes for the Lightning when Garrison put his team ahead. This meant that if the 4-3 score held up, Vasilevskiy would get the win, not Bishop.
A stoppage after the goal allowed Bishop to come back into the game, leading some to believe that it was an equipment issue that had caused the 6’7″ goalie to leave the ice.
A couple of shifts went by, but again Vasilevskiy was thrusted into the game unexpectedly. Bishop was headed for the locker room for a second time for unknown reasons. Cooper said after the game that he would not comment on the status of either goaltenders.
In the end, the Russian goaltender made a pair of crucial saves on a Blackhawks PP and made five saves in total to hold on for his first career victory in the postseason. Vasilevskiy is the first goalie to win his first career postseason game in relief in the Stanley Cup Final since 1928. No comeback for Chicago would come to fruition this time around as Game 2 belonged to the Lightning. The series is now tied at 1-1 heading back to the United Center.
A crazy end to an even crazier hockey game.
The 4-3 victory for Cooper’s club was not executed ideally, but there were plenty of positives to take away for his offense that was held to only one goal in Game 1.
Since the Final changed to its current best-of-7 format in 1939, the team that has won Game 2 has captured the Stanley Cup 74.7% of the time (56 of 75 series).
