Lightning power play burns Stars

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This article was published 21/09/2020 (2169 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

EDMONTON — Don’t wake the sleeping giant. 

The Dallas Stars learned that lesson the hard way Monday night, as a parade to the penalty box came back to bite them. Three straight infractions before the first period was barely half over led to a pair of goals by the Tampa Bay Lightning, who carried that momentum into a much-needed 3-2 victory.

The Stanley Cup final is tied 1-1, with Game 3 going Wednesday night at Rogers Place.

It may not have been a must-win in the literal sense, but it certainly felt like that was the case for a high-scoring Tampa Bay squad that was stifled in a 4-1 Game 1 loss. Teams that have fallen behind 0-2 in the best-of-seven championship series have gone on to lose 46 of 51 finals, so the task at hand was significant. 

The Lightning came out with a sense of urgency, desperation and purpose, tilting the ice in their favour and getting rewarded against an overly aggressive and reckless Stars team that was playing with fire — and quickly got burned.

Brayden Point ripped a shot from the slot past Anton Khudobin with Joe Pavelski in the box for tripping at 11:23 of the first period. It marked the first time in seven games in these playoffs the Lightning lit the lamp first, a welcome relief from the usual pattern of playing behind.

But they weren’t done there.  Ondrej Palat made it 2-0 at 14:22, completing a gorgeous passing sequence, this time with Jamie Oleksiak serving a holding infraction.

“It’s been streaky. We see to score in bunches on our power play, and we definitely needed them (Monday) night,” said Tampa head coach Jon Cooper.

“They executed. That was big. But they’re a confident group. You can’t score every time on the power play, but you need to keep the momentum. The puck went in for them tonight, I thought they deserved it, and it’s a big reason why we won.”

It seemed like the rout might be on when defenceman Kevin Shattenkirk took a shot through heavy traffic that beat Khudobin to make it 3-0 less than a minute after Palat’s goal.

“I think it was just a matter of realizing we needed a little more movement. Obviously just had to make a couple simple plays. This time of year you can’t really get frustrated, you just have to stick with it, wait for your next opportunity. We obviously have the guys on this team who can make you pay at any moment,” Shattenkirk said of what changed 48 hours later for a power play that couldn’t get anything going in Game 1. 

There was some hope that Tampa captain Steven Stamkos might be ready to make his playoff debut after battling an injury, but the team’s best pure sniper was once again scratched despite participating in the morning skate.

Turns out they didn’t need him, with several other potent offensive weapons including Nikita Kucherov, who made terrific passes for the primary assists on the power-play tallies. 

“We had some good looks in the first game but just couldn’t score. We just stuck to what we have to do, keep it simple, shoot the puck at the net and get those rebounds,” said Kucherov. 

Give some credit to Rick Bowness’ crew. The feisty Stars didn’t fold, and began to take over the game for a prolonged stretch after digging the early hole. 

Dallas got one back during a scrappy middle frame, which saw numerous after-the-whistle skirmishes and a series of infractions, mostly on the Lightning side. Pavelski got his stick on a John Klingberg shot, with his team enjoying a man advantage, to make it 3-1.

“We took a lot of penalties in the second and were on our heels a little bit,” said Tampa defenceman Victor Hedman. “That’s on us as a group to be better and not be drawn into that. I think overall the PK was great, but they got one there and got some life.”

Mattias Janmark cut the deficit to one goal barely five minutes into the third period, and suddenly it was the Lightning reeling in a game they had been in full control of.

But Tampa Bay took back control of the play in the final minutes.

“One thing this team has done is they just never put themselves in panic mode. Instead of trying to protect the lead, they went out there and actually kind of took it to them,” said Cooper.

“We were completely engaged, it was really calm on the bench. It’s just our attitude. They don’t go through the waves of the game. There’s so many emotions that occur in 60 minutes, it can be easy to get caught up in it. But they don’t. The talk on the bench was close this one out and that’s what they did.”

Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 27 saves for the victory. Khudobin made 28 stops in defeat.

 

mike.mcintyre@freepress.mb.ca

Twitter: @mikemcintyrewpg