Adversity sparks opportunity for Lightning’s Nick Paul
TORONTO — The Tampa Bay Lightning are not any strangers to adversity.
The back-to-back Stanley Cup champions discovered themselves in yet one more troublesome state of affairs Saturday evening. And as they’ve so many instances up to now, the battle-tested group was capable of rise to the event.
The Lightning had been pushed to the brink by a determined Toronto Maple Leafs squad, however in the long run they got here away with a 2-1 win in Recreation 7 of their best-of-seven sequence.
Tampa Bay has now gained 9 consecutive playoff sequence since they had been swept by the Columbus Blue Jackets within the first spherical of the 2019 playoffs, with this primary spherical sequence towards Toronto proving to be one in all their hardest exams in that span.
“It was a close-fought sequence. They’ve some unbelievable gamers,” stated star Tampa defenceman Victor Hedman after the sport. “It was a detailed recreation immediately, it might have gone both means.”
However in the long run the sport went to the Lightning, though it was a hard-fought victory. Tampa Bay misplaced ahead Brayden Point to an damage within the first interval, and though Level tried to rejoin the sport within the second, he was finally unable to proceed.
The Lightning had been capable of face up to the lack of Level, who had 28 targets in 66 regular-season video games this 12 months.
With the lack of one in all their greatest gamers, Tampa as soon as once more discovered themselves compelled to step up within the face of a difficult state of affairs.
“I don’t assume you could have performed what we’ve performed the final couple of years until you could have gamers that may reply the best way they did,” stated Lightning head coach Jon Cooper when requested about his staff’s response to Level’s damage. “They’ve performed it time and time once more and we shouldn’t be stunned that they did it.”
Though Tampa could also be a staff with loads of playoff expertise, it was a participant enjoying in his first ever Recreation 7, ahead Nick Paul, who equipped the Lightning with a spark. Paul scored each of Tampa’s targets, the primary two targets of his playoff profession.
It was a becoming breakout for the depth ahead after his teammate Corey Perry had spoken earlier Saturday morning about how Recreation 7s could be a probability for gamers to make a reputation for themselves. Paul, nonetheless, was fast to unfold the credit score round to his teammates.
“It’s the performs that occur round it, you already know?”, stated Paul. “It’s a staff recreation, clearly. I used to be the one who ended up placing it within the web, but it surely was everybody on the ice making the performs occur.”
The highway to the NHL’s first three-peat because the 1982 New York Islanders gained’t get any simpler for the Lightning within the second spherical, as they transfer on to play the President’s Trophy-winning Florida Panthers in an intra-state conflict. The Lightning defeated the Panthers within the first spherical of final 12 months’s playoffs.
This report by The Canadian Press was first printed Might 15, 2022
Griffin Porter, The Canadian Press
