TAMPA, Fla. — By just about every measure the Tampa Bay Lightning have arrived at this Stanley Cup final ahead of schedule. The progression will likely need to be sped up even further for them to win it.
Until we’re notified otherwise, the task of backstopping Tampa against the Chicago Blackhawks now rests with a 20-year-old who has fewer wins in his NHL career (eight) than counterpart Ben Bishop has in these playoffs (12).
His name is Andrei Vasilevkiy and his unexpected appearance in the third period took Saturday’s wildly entertaining game to an entirely different level of crazy.
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It was 3-3 when Bishop pulled himself for unknown reasons at 7:17. Then Jason Garrison scored a power-play goal at 8:49 and Bishop returned.
After two more whistles, Bishop ceded the crease to Vasilevskiy for a final time at 12:19, and the Lightning held on to even the series.
No one had any clue what was happening.
“We heard the PA announcer going back and forth with announcing who was in net,” said Lightning captain Steven Stamkos. “We don’t know what’s up.”
Behind the scenes, there will be more clarity as the Cup final shifts to Chicago for Game 3 on Monday. Everyone else should count on being kept in the dark until puck drop.
Vasilevskiy is widely considered Tampa’s goalie of the future, but absent concrete information, we have to assume the future is now. Talk about throwing more unpredictability into a matchup that already includes plenty of it.
Teams generally don’t carry rookie backups, so Vasilevskiy became the first goalie since 1928 to earn his first playoff win in relief in the Stanley Cup final. It took only five saves to do it, which gave him the lowest total by a winner in the championship series since shots started being counted in 1967.
That provides some pretty good context about how unusual this game was.
“Nervous? Just maybe a little bit but after the first couple shots,” said Vasilevskiy. “I feel myself better. Every game I’m ready and I keep my head ready for the game and that’s it.”
This was a reminder of possibility, and of excitement. A game with enough touches of ugly — hello Corey Crawford — to be beautiful.
In short, this was what we were really hoping to see from two teams loaded with enough skill to erase memories of the sludge-and-grind style we saw so often during the opening two rounds of these playoffs.
“I think it’s good for the league that you look at the final two teams,” Blackhawks star Patrick Kane had said Friday. “Both teams have that offensive punch and have the star power.”
Chicago’s stars have yet to truly join the party. Kane and Jonathan Toews managed just one shot on goal through two periods when coach Joel Quenneville chose to separate them.
They were neutralized by unheralded Lightning centre Cedric Paquette, who opened the scoring by dangling around Brandon Saad and Toews before beating Crawford.
“It’s a crazy moment for me,” he said.
The action went haywire in the second period. Chicago’s Andrew Shaw and Teuvo Teravainen scored 62 seconds apart — an outburst reminiscent of Game 1 — but this time the Lightning pushed back, rather than wilting.
Nikita Kucherov showed a surgeon’s touch in turning his wrists ever-so-slightly to redirect a puck that travelled through his legs.
Crawford still hasn’t seen it.
Then linemate Tyler Johnson, the playoff goal leader who had been on a five-game goal drought, swept across the goal-line and fired a meagre backhand that snuck by the Blackhawks starter.
“So that situation happened again, we gave up the two quick goals and it was 2-1,” said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. “Our guys wouldn’t be denied. There was a fire on that bench when that happened. It wasn’t panic, it was pissed, and you gotta love that in your team.”
The young Lightning continue to learn on the fly. They also seem to fashion a worthy response when backed into a corner.
Even after Brent Seabrook again tied the score on a play where Marian Hossa appeared to interfere with Bishop, and even after Bishop and Vasilevskiy performed the tango in the Tampa crease, they found a way.
Perhaps Bishop was battling dehydration or a flu bug and we’ll see him back for Game 3. Or perhaps the job now belongs to a big, athletic kid who has played important games for the Russian national team, but never anything quiet like this.
“I know we have two unbelievably capable goaltenders,” said Cooper. “When Bish had to leave, there wasn’t an ounce of stress on anybody on our bench, including myself. I mean, the kid proved it when he went in.
“He was great.”
So was Game 2. Thank goodness for that.
