Eastern Conference Finals Game 3 live conversation

The New York Rangers have a golden opportunity to put the Tampa Bay Lightning in a dire situation.  The Rangers need to win one of two game in Florida to put the Lightning down three games to one, but winning today will come close to guaranteeing a trip to the Stanley Cup Final for the Blueshirts.

Of course, nothing is guaranteed when it comes to the Stanley Cup Playoffs, just ask the Pittsburgh Penguins.  But only four teams in NHL history have overcome 3-0 deficits so a win today would almost seal the deal.

Winning in Tampa won’t be easy.  The Lightning had a 27-8-6 at Amalie Arena this season, good for eighth best in the NHL.  In the playoffs, they have won four of five in Tampa, outscoring the opposition 20-12.

On a positive note, the Rangers won both of their games this season in Tampa.  In their last playoff meeting in 2015, the Blueshirts won two of three in Tampa outscoring the Bolts 12-4 and their only loss was 6-5 in overtime.

With the last change, you can be sure that Jon Cooper will be trying to match his best against the Kid Line and the third defense pairing of Braden Schneider and Justin Braun.  While he will try to exploit the defensive shortcomings of those combinations, it will free up the Rangers’ top two lines to make some hay..

The Lightning made a point of proclaiming that their performance in the third period was a sign of things to come, but the Rangers were also in a semi-prevent offense and were intent on protecting the two-goal lead.  Coach Gerard Gallant has repeatedly said that he never wants to go into a defensive shell, but with a two goal lead in the third period of a Conference Finals game, it’s hard not to.

At any rate, they bent but didn’t break, and are poised to take a decisive lead in this series.  The Rangers have had at least one stinker in each of their first two series and the hope has to be that they’ve learned their lesson about sitting back and overconfidence.

NEW YORK RANGERS

20 Kreider – 93 Zibanejad – 77 Vatrano
10 Panarin – 16 Strome – 18 Copp
13 Lafreniere -72 Chytil  – 24 Kakko
64 Motte  – 21 Goodrow – 75 Reaves

55 Lindgren  – 23 Fox
79 Miller – 8  Trouba
61 Braun – 54  Schneider

31 Shesterkin
40  Georgiev

TAMPA BAY LIGHTNING

91 Steven Stamkos – 71 Anthony Cirelli – 86 Nikita Kucherov
18 Ondrej Palat – 20 Nicholas Paul – 17 Alex Killorn
38 Brandon Hagel -79  Ross Colton – 10 Corey Perry
14 Pat Maroon – 41 Pierre-Edouard Bellemare

77 Victor Hedman – 81 Erik Cernak
27 Ryan McDonagh – 24 Zach Bogosian
98 Mikhail Sergachev – 52 Cal Foote
44 Jan Rutta

88 Andrei Vasilevskiy
1 Brian Elliott

There is some talk that Jon Cooper will go with a 12 forward, six defense lineup for the first time.  In that case, it would be a return to the lineup for center Riley Nash (#20) with defenseman Cal Foote the likely candidate to take a seat in the press box.

How to watch and the live conversation

Game time is 3pm and it will be televised on ESPN with the live stream on ESPN+.  MSG Network’s pregame show kicks off at 2:30pm and as soon as the game ends they will have full postgame coverage.

Blue Line Station’s live conversation is active now and you can join your fellow Blueshirts faithful and root on your favorite team.   We’ve had lively conversations for all of the Rangers’ playoff games and this should be no exception.

You can join the chat in the comments section below.  We have had some issues with the auto-refresh feature and the workaround is to sort the messages by oldest, then back to newest in order to see the latest comments.