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Tampa Bay takes Game 3 in OT: Lightning attack overwhelms Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist again

Tampa Bay takes Game 3 in OT: Lightning attack overwhelms Rangers goalie Henrik Lundqvist again

TAMPA — Henrik Lundqvist was alone in the dressing room, his goalie pads still on and his face in his hand. His New York Rangers cap was pulled low, and his back was up against the back of his stall. He stared straight ahead.

After a few moments, he picked up a water bottle and drank it empty, then threw it onto the ground. He reached over to unstrap the Velcro on his left pad – thwatch, thwatch, thwatch – and then he sat back again. He put his hand to his brow and left it there, covering his face again.

This is one of the greatest talents in his sport and he is in crisis. Lundqvist has given up six goals in consecutive playoff games, ceding what was a 1-0 series lead and is now a 2-1 deficit to the Tampa Bay Lightning. He has allowed more goals in these three games than he did in all seven games against the Capitals in the last round. Including the regular season, Lundqvist has allowed five or more goals only six times, yet four times against these Bolts. On Wednesday, the final goal – the winning goal – was a shot he said he didn’t even pick up.

Lundqvist insisted he needed to “dig deep” after this 6-5 overtime loss, but it’s clear he’s already tried to do so. The onslaught of passes and shots and rebounds is simply overwhelming his team. Perhaps the most telling goal was not the sixth that won it, but the fifth, in which Lundqvist ended up dropping to his knees and then onto his front while the puck hit the net behind him. He looked like a felled oak.

Nikita Kucherov jumps for joy after scoring the overtime winner for Tampa Bay in a wild Game 3. (AP)
Nikita Kucherov jumps for joy after scoring the overtime winner for Tampa Bay in a wild Game 3. (AP)

“The whole game is really challenging for me,” he said, “the way they move the puck and find open ice in the slot and scoring chances right in front.”

The problem is that by the time the Lightning enter the Rangers’ zone, it’s already too late. The now-famous ‘Triplets’ line – Tyler Johnson, Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov – have both the speed and the wisdom to put something on net and then be at the doorstep for any rebound. They have scored 25 of the Lightning’s 47 playoff goals. They feel inevitable.

“We know what we’re gonna do,” Johnson said, “even before we get the puck.”

Then add Alex Killorn, who’s been a force in the playoffs, and you still haven’t gotten to the Lightning’s best player, Steven Stamkos. It was Stamkos who had the play of the game, stealing the puck in his own end, racing through center ice and headmanning it to Killorn, and then pouncing on Lundqvist’s rebound to cut an early Rangers lead to 2-1. That changed the entire game, from what looked like a careful and sure Rangers start to what New York defenseman Dan Girardi called “a track meet.”

It is the Lightning’s ability to “play 200 feet,” in the words of coach Jon Cooper, that is damaging the Rangers here. The ‘Triplets’ start their wizardry by backchecking and charging out of their own end. The momentum doesn’t start anywhere near Lundqvist’s net. It only crescendos there.

“We saw it all year,” said former Lightning captain Dave Andreychuk after the game. “Nobody can really stand them up.”

The Red Wings came closest, with their brand of skillful interference, but even they wilted. The Rangers, on the other hand, don’t seem to have much of a clue. The look on Lundqvist’s face, and the sense in the team’s dressing room, is not one of anger but one of exasperation. “We don’t want to play this way,” Girardi said flatly.

This isn’t Lundqvist’s fault, by any stretch, and yet he has to figure out how to challenge this team of speedsters. Does he move up towards the shooter and risk another brilliant pass? Does he sit back and risk a bomb from Stamkos or Kucherov? There really isn’t much of an airtight strategy against Tampa Bay. If there were, Montreal’s Carey Price would have used it.

That’s what’s really scary for Rangers fans: the time to learn the lesson and shut it down was after Game 2. New York surrendered six goals, and came out hitting in Game 3, and went up two goals … and still eventually got trampled with six against. They were out-hit. They lost the faceoff battle. And Lightning goalie Ben Bishop wasn’t his usual self, looking especially off in the first period.

The Rangers are now back to searching while the Lightning feel omnipotent. You know there’s confidence in the dressing room when the head coach tells reporters, “Any time a penalty is called on them, you feel like they’re gonna score.”

This is not sudden. The Lightning have played this way all season. It only feels sudden. And that is why arguably the best goalie in the world is looking so shocked.

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