TORONTO — The Tampa Bay Lightning were dining on the worst food the Stanley Cup bubble has to offer.
A broken stick leading to a goal against. A razor-thin offside review bringing back the equalizer. Debated penalty calls, a blown lead inside the final four minutes and the very real possibility of falling 2-0 down to the Boston Bruins in this highly charged best-of-seven.
“Sometimes you’re just dealt a sandwich that doesn’t taste very good, if you know what I mean,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper, who came to enjoy the post-game spread a little better after seeing his team stick with it long enough to get an overtime winner from Ondrej Palat.
“If you have mental weakness at all, you’re probably sitting there and saying ‘poor us.’ That’s just not been this group. That’s just not how they operate anytime there is a mishap, they just turn the page. It was needed tonight, I’ll tell you that. They needed to be rewarded for the work they were doing and, in the end, they were.”
The Lightning’s 4-3 win increased the odds the rest of us will be treated to a series befitting these two Eastern Conference powerhouses, who are now tied 1-1 with less than 24 hours to prepare for Game 3 on Wednesday.
The combination of that schedule, the opponent and the string of events seemingly going against them came with some mental duress for the Lightning. You could see it in their exuberance after Palat swooped toward the net and found a rebound to freeze the clock in overtime, jumping into the arms of big Pat Maroon.
Sean Kuraly uncharacteristically failed on a chance to clear the puck from the Bruins’ zone before the winning goal, causing coach Bruce Cassidy to lament the small mistakes that carry big consequences.
“It started with the decision to rim the puck when there wasn’t a lot of pressure,” said Cassidy. “It’d be a nice time to put out a fire and make a clean play.”
When the Lightning have carved out successful stretches in this series, it’s usually been fuelled by a fast forecheck and defencemen jumping into the attack. They’ve made a point of throwing as many pucks as possible at Jaroslav Halak and built a sizeable edge in the 5-on-5 shot attempts as a result.
The Bruins have owned an edge on speciality teams — Brad Marchand scored a power-play goal in Game 2, while the penalty kill was perfect — and gotten some big-time shifts from their prime performers at evens.
Marchand was a determined puck hound on his second goal, helping the keep play alive a couple times. After being knocked to the ice, he got up in time to bat home the 3-3 equalizer at 16:02 of the third period.
There’s not a lot to choose between here, which is why some of the bounces and swings in momentum feel so pronounced. The Lightning prioritized a better start than they had in Game 1 and delivered … until Zach Bogosian’s stick exploded while he leaned into a shot, giving Boston a dangerous rush the other way and eventually a Nick Ritchie goal.
“It’s just an unfortunate bounce. Those plays happen, sticks break all the time,” said Bogosian. “I just happened to be the last guy back.”
The Lightning kept applying the pressure and appeared to tie it on a Barclay Goodrow tip two minutes later — at least until a lengthy offside review showed Brayden Point failing to clear the zone before the entry while skating back slowly for a line change.
Blake Coleman got one that counted at 12:42 with arguably the prettiest goal of these playoffs. He dove to meet a pass from Bogosian after the big defenceman danced through Torey Krug and Brandon Carlo with a move that shocked everyone in the building.
“I saw Bogo picking up some speed and he just kind of had that look in his eye like he was about to do something,” said Coleman. “He made a heck of a play. That’s really all on him.”
These Bruins are a patient bunch, though, and re-established their advantage with a Marchand tap-in from David Pastrnak during the power play. Then Nikita Kucherov answered 56 seconds later after Point held the puck for an eternity and found Kevin Shattenkirk for an unobstructed point shot he tipped.
Back and forth it went, with the high-end players on both teams stacking up quality shifts. It was intense.
“The emotions that everybody is riding on their couch, trust me, we’re riding on the bench as well,” said Cooper.
Playoffs inside the bubble are still contested on the ice, but a healthy portion of the battle is being waged in the minds of the participants. The players have been living behind black fencing for a month now and are sprinting through a gauntlet of games.
Marchand said “it’s that fear of losing, I guess, that kind of drains you mentally.”
The stakes are increasing with each passing day.
“We have a common goal, and I think the team that sort of sticks with it long enough or the longest will have a really good chance to win,” said Cassidy. “Obviously, you need talent to win in the playoffs, but this is a different environment so it’s between the ears a little bit where it’s different from other years.”
So different that after playing 65 minutes of momentum-swinging hockey the Lightning and Bruins will immediately turn back around and do it again.
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