Tampa Bay will head into Chicago Monday night with new life as Tyler Johnson, Cedric Paquette and Nikita Kucherov chipped in goals and survived 4-3. A strange ninety two second goalie exchange by Tampa Bay is perhaps the hidden headline in this sixty minute seesaw battle.
Paquette struck the net 12:56 into the game to begin the scoring, his second of the playoffs, assisted by Ryan Callahan and Victor Hedman. Both teams traded great scoring opportunities, with the first period closing at 1-0 Tampa Bay. Lightning attempted twelve shots in the first frame, Chicago eleven.
Second period play opened with Andrew Shaw’s fifth postseason goal off an Andrew Desjardins dish, knotting the game up at one. Two minutes later, Chicago took advantage of their power play opportunity by hitting the net courtesy of Teuvo Teravainen, his fourth, assisted by Hossa and Sharp. Just 1:32 later, Nikita Kucherov took Jason Garrison’s dish to the house for his tenth goal this postseason, assisted by Braydon Coburn. Both teams traded monster hits and great shots until Tyler Johnson struck pay dirt at the 13:58 mark, putting the Lightning up 3-2 heading into the second intermission.
Brent Seabrook opened the third period scoring with his seventh this postseason, assisted by Toews and Oduya, putting the scoreboard even once again. After Tampa Bay fought off flurries of Chicago scoring attempts, Lightning goalie Ben Bishop skated off the ice for an undisclosed reason, putting the inexperienced Andrei Vasilevskiy into the largest game of his career – his 17th overall.
Ninety-two seconds later, Jason Garrison scored a power play goal, his second this postseason. Bishop returned shortly after the goal was scored, then left for good with 7:41 to play. Vasilevskiy tallied five great saves for Tampa Bay, closing out the game and evening the series heading into the Windy City. Tampa Bay improved to 4-0 in Game 2’s this postseason.
Saturday’s stat line didn’t match the final score. Chicago nearly doubled Tampa Bay in faceoffs won (35 to 19), recorded more shots on goal (29 to 22) and gave the puck away less (8 to 11). Tampa Bay outhit and stole more opportunities from Chicago, which ended up being key to their victory. Ben Bishop’s exit is thought to be injury related, although we’ll update this article if news stating otherwise is released.
Game 3 is Monday night at the United Center in Chicago.
