The playoffs are as much a mental battle as a physical one. And the Tampa Bay Lightning insist that Carey Price hasn’t gotten in their minds after seeing the Montreal Canadiens crawl back into their second-round series.
“For us, we’ve had success against Carey Price,” Lightning coach Jon Cooper told reporters on a Sunday conference call. “So he, to us, is not the mental block just because we’ve played them so many times in the last couple years and we look back and his numbers against the Tampa Bay Lightning are very pedestrian compared to the rest of the teams.
“That doesn’t make him any less a goaltender. We’ve just found a way a little bit to have some success.”
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Price is having the season of his life — he’ll likely take home both the Vezina Trophy and Hart Trophy in June — but was 0-4-1 against the Lightning with a .906 save percentage during the year.
After dropping the first three games of this series, Price has been rock solid in winning the last two. He was especially sharp on Saturday, getting his right pad on Brenden Morrow’s dangerous attempt before stretching his glove across the crease to deny Valtteri Filppula in the third period.
That was arguably the save of the entire playoffs so far.
However, Cooper didn’t have to search very hard to find examples of times where his players got the best of Price. They chased him during a 7-1 victory in October and beat him six times in Game 2 of this series.
“In our guys’ minds, yes, are we facing an all-world talent? We are,” said Cooper. “But we’ve had success in the past and I think that’s really something we’ve been hanging our hat on as we’ve done it in the past, we can do it again, and that’s kind of been our mindset.”
With the series shifting to Tampa on Tuesday night, the Lightning coach downplayed any notion that his team was under added pressure after twice failing to eliminate the Habs.
Through 94 games this season, the Lightning haven’t lost more than two games in a row at any point. Montreal will have to end that streak to force a Game 7 in this series.
Should they manage to accomplish the feat, you’d have to expect that Price will play a central role in it.
“It’s not much of a secret: Carey Price is arguably the best goalie in the world,” said Cooper. “He’s kind of been the backbone of their team for a lot of years now. What they’ve done is they’ve learned to play hockey around him because it’s not just one guy that’s going to be able to carry a team, but he’s been kind of an X-factor for them and they have a lot of confidence in him.
“They’ve learned to play around him.”
Here’s the rub: Tampa believes it has the ability to play in front of him, too.
