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The balance the Tampa Bay Lightning possess on the forward front and even on the back-end, along with an all-world goaltender in
Ben Bishop has made the club a legitimate threat for the franchise’s second Stanley Cup the last two seasons. And though that same depth was hit-or-miss throughout the regular season, with some of the club’s key contributors (and even roleplayers) out -- J.T. Brown (upper-body), Anton Stralman (fractured fibula), and Steven Stamkos (blood clot) -- countless players have risen to the challenge and helped give the Lightning a commanding 3-1 series lead.
Center
Brian Boyle played the hero in Tampa Bay’s Game 3 overtime win, and second-pairing d-man
Jason Garrison provided an encore with a bomb of an overtime goal in the next game. Meanwhile,
Ryan Callahan, who had perhaps the most strugglesome regular season of his Tampa tenure (and perhaps his entire NHL career), has been a monster for the Bolts in this series, with a goal and an assist, along with seven shots on goal and a bruising 22 hits through four games.
More of that, and with the scene shifted back towards Amalie Arena for today’s Game 5 showdown, and the Lightning should advance to the Eastern Conference Finals for the second straight season.
This is the first time the Isles have faced elimination this postseason, so it’s easy to suggest that the pressure is on them. But one Tampa Bay no-show and it’s back to Brooklyn for a Game 6. In that building and with guys like Brown, Stralman, and Stamkos still unavailable? No thanks. Similar to the sentiment in round one when it came to finishing off the Red Wings, the Bolts need the rest (especially given the test they’d face in round three), which really makes this a must-win for the Lightning.
Expect the same lineup from the lineup, with maybe a slight change to the seventh defenseman -- Lightning coach
Jon Cooper put Luke Witkowski in the lineup along with a healthy Matt Carle in for Matt Taormina/Nikita Nesterov in Game 4 -- and of course, Bishop still in the crease for the Bolts.
The 29-year-old Bishop came through with his best game of the series in Game 4, and finished the night with 27 stops on 28 shots against. Since his disastrous Game 1 outing that yielded four goals on just 13 shots against, Bishop has stopped 81-of-87 shots against, a .931 save percentage.
New York counters with Thomas Greiss, who stopped 20-of-22 in Game 4, and has surrendered 13 goals on 129 shots against, good for an .899 save percentage through the first four games of this series.
In semi-Lightning related news, former Tampa Bay head coach
Guy Boucher has found himself back in the NHL, and as a head coach, too, as the new bench boss of the Ottawa Senators. Boucher spent three seasons with Tampa Bay, and won 97 games in a 195-game stint that ended 31 games into the lockout-delayed 2013 campaign, when he was replaced by Cooper. Boucher, known for the 1-3-1 that frustrated the hell out of teams on the way to the 2011 Eastern Conference Finals, had spent the last few seasons in the Swiss League as the coach of SC Bern before being fired this past season.
A win would propel the Bolts to their third Eastern Conference Finals appearance in the last six seasons.
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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