In New York, the Rangers’ Chris Kreider scored with 71 seconds of fresh ice gone in the first period to snap a brilliant pass from Mika Zibanejad into the net to take an early 1-0 lead over the Tampa Bay Lightning on Wednesday night.
“I think when you compete hard defensively and you get opportunities like we did tonight, some 2-on-1s and some power-play goals, that’s the recipe for us to win hockey games,” New York coach Gerard Gallant said. “We had great goaltending, solid chances and we buried our chances.”
Continuing the theme, Artemi Panarin scored with just 30 seconds gone on the third period ice to give New York a 5-2 lead.
Wait, what?
“It’s nice for the confidence to score some goals, but we’ve been at the other end of it,” Zibanejad said. “[The series] is still just 1-0. It’s a new game on Friday. Just got to get back to playing our game and try to take some positives from this game. … We know it’s far from over. It’s just one game so we’ve just got to keep going.”
Igor Shesterkin made 37 saves and the Rangers won Game 1 of the Eastern conference Final, 6-2, over the Lightning.
Game 2 is at Madison Square Garden on Friday night.
Steven Stamkos and Ondrej Palat were the Tampa strikers.
“We’re definitely not a group that is going to use [rest] as an excuse,” Stamkos said. ” …There’s areas that we’re going to improve on. It’s Game 1 of a long series and you’ve got to give them credit.”
Stamkos scored after Kreider to get the Lightning even at 1-1.
“You’ve got to give them credit,” Stamkos said. “That’s a really good hockey team over there. They played well tonight. We certainly didn’t have our best, so not much we can do about it now. … Too many turnovers and execution wasn’t there tonight. We have to respond. We’ve been in this position before and I’m confident our group is going to have a much better effort next game.”
In the middle frame, Frank Vatrano scored to give the Rangers a 2-1 advantage, but Palat replied replied for the Lightning again to even the count at 2-2.
“The Rangers have some dynamic players, and you give them an inch and they’ll take a mile, and they did that tonight,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper said. “Give credit to them. They’re a good team. … They didn’t fluke their way to where they are in this playoffs.”
From there, the Rangers’ Kid Line of Kaapo Kakko, Alexis Lafreniere, and Filip Chytil took over the middle frame.
“Fil’s a good kid,” Gallant said. “He worked hard, he competes hard and he deserves what he’s getting right now. He’s stepped his game up. He knows it, everybody knows it and that is exactly what we need from him.”
With Kakko and Lafreniere setting the table, Chytil scored twice before the second period ended to send the Rangers to the third period with a 4-2 lead, and the Garden faithful into delirium.
“When you’re not putting pucks to the net, you’re not helping the team that much and maybe start to be frustrated but now it’s finally going in,” Chytil said. “I’m so happy that I can help the team like this and [we’re] winning the games.”
Lafreniere assisted on both of Chytil’s goals.
“It was close to their best (game) if it wasn’t their best, for sure,” Rangers coach Gerard Gallant said. “They got inside, they scored some nice goals, they made some plays. They’re attacking. They’re a confident bunch of kids now, and we need that to continue.”
The Lightning have not lost two straight games in three post seasons. After their last 18 losses in the post season, they won each of their next matches.
Panarin then scored early in the third period, and Zibanejad hit for a power play goal for the 6-2 final.
“It’s always fun to play with the lead and not trying to crawl back into games,” Vatrano said, “but they are a team that can score in bunches also, so we know no lead is safe against them. We’ve still got to do the little things right regardless of the score and can’t give them any freebies. I think in the second and third period, we did a great job at moving our feet and being smart with pucks.”
New York has won seven straight at Madison Square Garden.
Tampa had surrendered only three goals in the four-game sweep of the Florida Panthers in the second round.
“We’ve got better in us. We’re going to show up in two nights from now,” Cooper said. “… I give the Rangers full marks on their game, their plan, their effort tonight, and we’ll try and make a few adjustments here and we’ll be back in two nights.”
The Rangers were 1-for-2 on the power play, Tampa was scoreless in three chances.
A fracas broke out in the Rangers zone with less than two minutes left on the clock. A series of cross checking and roughing calls ended with a power play for the Lightning.
The story of Game 1 will be the play of Chytil, Kakko, and Lafreniere.
“They have greatly improved and contributed throughout the playoffs,” Panarin said. “They’re just a joy to watch, to be honest. They’re a huge part of the team.”
Andrei Vasilevskiy made 28 saves in the Lightning loss.
“Certainly not our best game,” Stamkos said. “They’re a team that has some really good players, and if you give them those chances, they’re going to bury them. I don’t care what the situation is. There were opportunities for us to make some better reads and some better plays, and it wasn’t there tonight.
“This group has bounced back always. We’ll bounce back.”
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