Blue Line Station
Fansided

Rangers let Tampa back into the series with 3-2 loss

By Steve Paulus

TAMPA, FLORIDA - JUNE 05: Frank Vatrano #77 of the New York Rangers goal tender interference on Andrei Vasilevskiy #88 of the Tampa Bay Lightning during the third period in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Amalie Arena on June 05, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
TAMPA, FLORIDA - JUNE 05: Frank Vatrano #77 of the New York Rangers goal tender interference on Andrei Vasilevskiy #88 of the Tampa Bay Lightning during the third period in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Amalie Arena on June 05, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /
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TAMPA, FLORIDA – JUNE 05: Frank Vatrano #77 of the New York Rangers goal tender interference on Andrei Vasilevskiy #88 of the Tampa Bay Lightning during the third period in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Amalie Arena on June 05, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images)
TAMPA, FLORIDA – JUNE 05: Frank Vatrano #77 of the New York Rangers goal tender interference on Andrei Vasilevskiy #88 of the Tampa Bay Lightning during the third period in Game Three of the Eastern Conference Final of the 2022 Stanley Cup Playoffs at Amalie Arena on June 05, 2022 in Tampa, Florida. (Photo by Bruce Bennett/Getty Images) /

If anyone thought the Tampa Bay Lightning would go easily, think again.  You don’t win two Stanley Cups in a row without a certain amount of tenacity and desperation.  By blowing a two goal lead, you could say that the New York Rangers surrendered a golden opportunity to put Tampa in a huge hole, but the Lighting played with tenacity and desperation and the Rangers still almost stole the win.

That’s how Gerard Gallant saw it. “It was 2-0, there was a lot of hockey game left, they (the Lightning) were playing well tonight, they were jumping, they were forcing us to make some mistakes we didn’t make in the prior two games…I wouldn’t say we let it get away, they played really well, again we could have stolen it tonight and been up 3-0.”

The Rangers lost Ryan Strome to a lower body injury after only one shift in the second period and that definitely impacted the Rangers’ offense. Replaced by Filip Chytil on the first power play unit, Chytil was on when the Rangers scored their two power play goals, but it hurt the Rangers’ 5v5 play.

While the injury was an issue, there were a  lot of penalties and all of the special teams play hampered the Rangers’ ability to roll four lines.  In fact, the Kids Line had only four shifts in the third period. That’s not good considering that they have been the Rangers go-to line when it come to extended shifts in the Tampa zone.

The shame was that they couldn’t get the game to overtime when it would have been anyone’s game.  It took a fabulous pass from Nikia Kucherov to set up Ondrej Palat with just 42 seconds left to keep the Rangers from regrouping and trying to win in extra time.

After the game, the Rangers admitted that they had gotten away from their game in the third period. Adam Fox said “The third period for us just wasn’t’ good enough.  We were on our heels the whole time.  Eventually they were going to get one and they did.”

Andrew Copp talked about mindset.  “Just gotta keep that even keel mentality on the bench and understand its a 0-0 hockey game in the third. Continue to push and try to get that next goal…with them getting that early goal on the power play, we couldn’t switch back to playing attacking hockey like we usually do.”

One thing was a fact, we finally saw the goalie battle we had been waiting for.

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