Dose: Long Live The King
After reading James O’Brien’s Daily Dose all week, I hope I’m half as good in this article. Good thing there was only one game on the schedule.
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NEW YORK RANGERS 5 TAMPA BAY 1
The Rangers evened the series at two games apiece on Friday as they dumped the Lightning in Tampa Bay 5-1.
Rick Nash finally found the back of the net and he did it twice to lead the offense but it was Henrik Lundqvist who foiled the Lightning throughout the game as he stopped 38 of 39 shots to lead the Rangers to their easiest win of the playoffs as they won by more than one goal for the first time in 16 games.
Everyone was on Lundqvist’s case for giving up back-to-back six goal games but his GAA is an amazing 2.05 in 16 playoff games even with the rather poor efforts of earlier in the week. He has been so good in the post-season that you had to figure he would come back and he did.
It was also a comeback of sorts for Nash who now has four goals in the playoffs. He had two goals on five shots Friday after scoring only twice on 53 shots in the first 15 games of the playoffs. It took a gorgeous deke on Ben Bishop to get him going as he opened the scoring off a nice feed from Kevin Hayes.
Steve Stamkos tied the game at one just past the midway mark of the second period as he slapped a shot past Lundqvist. It was the third straight game in which Stamkos has scored and he now has six in the playoffs.
Chris Kreider scored what turned out to be the winner at the 15:16 mark of the second period as he wristed a shot past Bishop who gave up all five goals on only 24 shots. Keith Yandle with his first of the playoffs gave the Rangers a 3-1 lead heading into the third period as he banked one in off Victor Hedman's leg.
The Rangers scored both third period goals on the power play as Martin St. Louis finally scored his first of the playoffs while Nash finished the scoring with 8:27 left in the game.
The game got chippy near the end as 50 minutes in penalties were called in the last 149 seconds including three misconducts to Nikita Kucherov, Tanner Glass and Cedric Paquette.
Kevin Klein, Kevin Hayes and Keith Yandle all had a pair of assists for the Rangers.
Brenden Morrow led the way with seven hits while Tampa Bay teammate Victor Hedman had seven shots on goal.
Matt Carle sat out Friday’s game with an undisclosed injury. He was replaced on the Lightning blueline by Mark Barberio. Barberio played only 8:44 and was a minus-one.
Game 5 is in New York on Sunday at 8 ET. It should be a doozy.
