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The Tampa Bay Lightning sound like a club that will have
Ryan Callahan at their disposal for Wednesday’s gigantic Game 3 showdown with the Pittsburgh Penguins at Amalie Arena.
All the games are big this time of year, I know, but a 2-1 series lead versus a 2-1 series deficit, especially against a Pittsburgh team like this, is such a ridiculously different scenario for any team. They are still without goaltender
Ben Bishop (lower-body, out since the first period of Game 1) and captain
Steven Stamkos (who, while practicing, has yet to play this postseason). But, there’s hope.
If the Lightning can survive just one more night without Bishop, something
Andrei Vasilevskiy and crew came close to pulling off in their Game 2 overtime loss on Monday night, there’s a good chance they’ll be able to finish this series with at least one -- maybe even two -- of those guys back in action.
In his pregame availability on Wednesday, Lightning head coach
Jon Cooper seemed hopeful that Bishop would return to practice tomorrow. And while you don’t want to jump to conclusions, this entire thing has seemingly been one giant bullet dodged for the Bolts. First, the X-rays were negative (an indication that there’s no structural damage) and now we’re talking about a return to practice, which would of course mean a return to game action a lot sooner than later for No. 30.
For whatever reason, the Lightning have not played particularly stellar in front of Vasilevskiy this season. Time and time again, it feels as if the lapses defensively are more common with No. 88 in net, or that they’re more glaring when the team does not have the 6-foot-7 Bishop in net.
And for as strong as Vasilevskiy has played in relief of the injured Bishop, if the Lightning are to eliminate the Pens and advanced to the Cup, at least in my opinion, it will take Bishop in the crease.
Meanwhile, on the Stamkos front, there’s still a wait when it comes to Stamkos’ medication allowing him to play. Given the risk of bleeding out or even worse -- bleeding from the brain -- the NHL does not allow players to suit up for game action when on blood thinners. Why? Well, get hit hard enough (the Penguins are not the New York Islanders in terms of physicality, but they still hit) and that happens.
But Stamkos has switched up his medication (he’s on the same injectable blood thinners that allowed Kimmo Timonen to return to action last year) with the hopes that it will accelerate his return.
Like Bishop, too, this is a series that may have to be won with No. 91 in action.
The Penguins simply have too many weapons -- from Sidney Crosby to Evgeni Malkin to the nearly unstoppable Hagelin-Bonino-Kessel line -- and the Bolts will need their best before it’s all over. But that’s later, and this is now. And the simple question ‘til then is, can the Bolts hang around while they continue to play the waiting game? Sure. But it has to be a lot better than Game 2’s effort.
When you watch the tape on Game 2, you notice that the Penguins came at Tampa Bay in waves. Their four-line rotation simply dominated the puck-possession game and really put the Lightning on their heels for the full 60:40. And when the Lightning, a team that loves to push pace on their own and really dictate the flow of the end-to-end action, they struggle. That’s been the case since Day 1.
Tampa Bay did find a boost with the immediate impact in
Anton Stralman’s return to game action, a goal scored by No. 6 and assisted on by
Jonathan Marchessault, but they’ll need more. The good news, of course, is that with the game on Amalie ice, the Bolts have a bit more say when it comes to dictating the matchup game and who they want to deploy and when.
But with Bishop and Stamkos out, a 2-1 series deficit is a near death sentence for this Bolts group given the way Pittsburgh has bodied teams and the way they're currently rolling lines.
This would be the perfect night for the Bolts’ top line -- and specifically the one-two punch of
Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov -- to come through with a statement game to match the Pittsburgh starpower, too. On the one-year anniversary of Johnson absolutely burning the New York Rangers with a hat trick in the second game of an Eastern Conference Final series, too.
In other words, it’s on the Bolts’ best to simply ‘survive’ one more night of the waiting game.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
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