Every shot and every second counts for Tampa Bay

TAMPA, Florida – It was a cute idea, really. That notion that as the last few seconds ticked off and the game lingered in the neutral zone, the middle period of Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final would end, just ending, with the score still tied but the Montreal Canadiens in control . A puck can do some miraculous things, however, and Lightning-wing Barclay Goodrow spun it past one Montreal defender and then maneuvered it past another to whip a backhand pass over the slot.

There was no time until just enough. Smoke sprayed behind Canadien’s goalkeeper Carey Price, and the crowd hooted and roared, and the man whose jump shot the puck into the net raced headlong toward the boards. Two years ago Blake Coleman scored one of the most incredible goals in recent NHL annals, but that attempt – a later game winner three-tenths of a second in one period in the Stanley Cup Finals – far exceeded it.

After their 3-1 win at Amalie Arena on Wednesday, Tampa Bay leads the best-of-seven streak with two to zero games and the Canadiens must wonder how they get so many things right and still see the Lightning can lift the Stanley Cup next week in Montreal.

That is the inherent problem with playing lightning, which can also get so many things wrong – uncharacteristic things – but which has quick-strike potential to destroy dreams and souls.

The Canadiens nearly doubled Tampa Bay’s total, 43-23, and lost. They lost because they couldn’t solve Andrei Vasilevskiy, who saved 42 shots, and they couldn’t get out of a time that was over.

Coleman plays on Tampa Bay’s sandpaper third line, which coach Jon Cooper used against Montreal’s top line, but she almost erased it. He and his linemates – Goodrow and Yanni Gourde – embody this new incarnation of Lightning, a team with a lot of speed and skill, yes, but also growls and a defensive identity.

Goodrow initiated the crucial sequence by flinging the puck past Ben Chiarot and then heading towards the net. He wobbled very slightly to gain space to send the puck from circle to circle to Coleman, who was being draped by Phillip Danault. And when Coleman fell, his stick hit Goodrow’s pass and knocked him into the near post just before – maybe three tenths of a second before? – The price slipped.

Perhaps everything looked familiar to Coleman who specialized in scoring goals he shouldn’t. As a member of the Devils, he took a one-handed shot into the net as it fell against the Winnipeg Jets. In college at Miami University, Ohio, he did the same in a playoff game against Western Michigan.

The roar of the Tampa Bay fans was deafening, almost as loud as the chants, which sounded long and true: “Vasy! Vasy! Vasy! ”They reverberated not after Vasilevskiy thwarted the Canadians’ first runaway in the first period, or their second or tight backhand, but before the puck was thrown on Wednesday night and the American and Canadian anthems were sung.

Price was only surpassed this postseason by Vasilevskiy, who underlined all three series winners – against the Florida Panthers, Carolina Hurricanes and Islanders – with shutouts and scored just two goals, one in each game, against the Canadiens.

The Canadiens played hockey in Game 1 in this bizarre alternate universe, a place where they resembled not the team that raged through the playoffs but all the opponents they defeated: incoherent and confused, inconsiderate with the puck, and unstructured without it . Like spectators, said Danault.

After deliberation, and had a day off Tuesday to search the rubble, Canadians took up the concept of simplicity. Keep doing what you did – just do it better and with more pep.

The first period passed as if Montreal had heeded Danault’s charge. Rather than defending odd-man rushes, the Canadiens created them. They jumped two runaways, sprayed shots from all directions, and penetrated the once impermeable space in front of Vasilevskiy. You didn’t score either.

When Tampa Bay scored the goal after 6 minutes 40 seconds of the second period, Anthony Cirelli’s point shot, whistling through a thicket of bodies, went against the course of the game. The Canadiens kept whistling Vasilevskiy, pushing the game further out, and were rewarded when Nick Suzuki dribbled out of the slot in a backhander that seemed to fend off at least one Lightning player.

His goal equaled the score at 1: 1 at 10:36, and that stayed that way for most of the second period – but not all.

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