Lightning knock out Islanders

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This article was published 17/09/2020 (2159 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EDMONTON — It will be Florida facing off against Texas for hockey’s holy grail. In an empty Canadian arena. During a global pandemic. Because it’s 2020.

The Tampa Bay Lightning punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup final with a 2-1 victory over the New York Islanders on Thursday night to end the Eastern Conference final in six games.

Forward Anthony Cirelli was the hero, sneaking a puck past Semyon Varlamov 13:18 into a wild extra frame that included plenty of scoring chances at both ends. It wasn’t immediately clear that the puck went in, resulting in a brief delay before the Lightning poured off the bench in celebration. 

“I think it’s every kid’s dream to be in this situation,” Cirelli said following the game. “The emotion is just so high. We worked all year, and our goal was to be playing for the Stanley Cup.”

On the play, Cirelli turned a one-on-three forecheck into a puck retrieval, then took a pass from teammate Barclay Goodrow to fire the winner.

“It was a hell of a play by Goody to fake a backhand and get that to me,” said Cirelli, who already has a Memorial Cup overtime goal with Oshawa from 2015 on his resumé.

Tampa’s victory sets up a date with the Dallas Stars, who disposed of the Vegas Golden Knights in five Western Conference final games earlier this week. Both teams will be searching for their second championship in franchise history. Dallas last won in 1999, while Tampa did so in 2004.

The best-of-seven series begins Saturday night in the hockey hub of Edmonton.

“They’re obviously playing a great team game. There’s a lot of speed up front, and a lot of size. We know (goalie Anton) Khudobin has been playing really well. It’s a quick turnaround, but as we’ve approached each series we obviously make the adjustments we need to our game plan,” Lightning defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk said about the Stars.

The Lightning got a boost with the return of leading playoff scorer Brayden Point, who had missed a pair of games against the Islanders with an undisclosed lower-body injury. But they found themselves trailing early after New York defenceman Devon Toews scored on a nifty, old-school wraparound 4:15 into the first period. That marked the fifth straight game the Islanders lit the lamp first.

The lead was short-lived, however, as Tampa blue-liner Victor Hedman continued his remarkable playoff run by burying a rebound at 6:28 of the opening frame. Hedman is up to nine goals this post-season, which is the third most in NHL history by a defenceman.

Only Edmonton’s Paul Coffey (12 in 1984-85) and Brian Leetch of the New York Rangers (11 in 1993-94) have scored more.

Tampa Bay poured it on from that point, dominating the rest of the period and outshooting their opponent 17-6. Only the stellar goaltending of Varlamov kept it tied, especially in a lopsided second period where the shots at one point got up to 24-6 near the midway mark.

The Lightning got back-to-back power plays but couldn’t beat Varlamov. His best work came on a point-blank save off Hedman, on a similar rebound to the one he’d scored on earlier.

Tampa, which has been without star Steven Stamkos for the entire playoffs due to injury, dodged a bullet late in the second period awhen Cirelli went down in a heap after an accidental collision with New York forward Anders Lee. He appeared to be favouring a knee as was helped off the ice by trainers. However, he was back for the start of the third.

“I was in a little bit of pain there but fortunately I was able to finish it off,” said Cirelli.

Given what was to eventually come, that proved to be quite the good omen.

The ice continued to be tilted as the Islanders employed a rope-a-dope strategy. Barry Trotz’s crew also kept flirting with disaster, with Toews taking a puck-over-the-glass penalty with just over four minutes left in the period — his second one of the game. Then came a double minor to Islanders defenceman Andy Greene with just 23 seconds left in regulation after he accidentally cut Tampa forward Nikita Kucherov with a high stick.

You may recall that Game 5 on Tuesday night was also tied 1-1 through regulation, with the Lightning starting overtime with the bulk of a four-minute power play courtesy of an eerily similar Anthony Beauvillier high stick that drew blood from Mikhail Sergachev.

The Islanders survived the lengthy infraction before ultimately getting the game-winner in double overtime from Jordan Eberle. And while they also killed off Greene’s four-minutes in the sin bin, they couldn’t get history to repeat itself in a second straight elimination game.

They did have a glorious chance in the form of a Brock Nelson short-handed breakaway, but he fired the puck into the chest of Andrei Vasilevskiy, who faced 27 shots. Varlamov was much busier with 48 pucks in his direction, including the final one from Cirelli, which bounced his club from the bubble.

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg