Beware of a Lightning-speedy bounce back.
This is what the Rangers confront in Recreation 2 of the Jap Convention Final against Tampa Bay Friday evening at the Yard.
The Lightning, the two-time defending Stanley Cup champs, appeared calm, awesome, gathered and unaffected by the early deficit established by Wednesday night’s 6-2 Rangers get as they carried out a spirited off-day skate Thursday at the Garden.
There was a distinctive “been-there, finished-that’’ vibe emanating from the Lightning, commencing with their mentor, Jon Cooper, who appeared absolutely at ease in his skin even with the jarring decline in the opener.
Cooper, who’s close with Rangers coach Gerard Gallant, was fast to praise the Blueshirts for their effectiveness and a lot quicker to assure his group will be a great deal much better in the up coming assembly.
As the Lightning, who are now -4 versus the Rangers this time (which include the Activity 1 decline), labored by means of their afternoon skate, the Back garden scoreboards ended up nonetheless exhibiting the 6-2 score on both of those ends of the ice as if Wednesday night’s activity was nonetheless dwell.
Coincidence … or a contact of gamesmanship?
We’ll depart that to your interpretation.
What requires no interpretation is the self confidence the Lightning have into Sport 2 inspite of the lopsided range they have been handed in Game 1 — the six goals were 2 times as quite a few as Tampa Bay yielded in its 4- sweep of Florida in the preceding collection.
“We as a team are quite very good at self-correcting,’’ Cooper reported immediately after the Thursday skate. “And guys, they consider losses personally. [Wednesday] night specifically, the way the score acquired out of hand it influences the guys. I cannot guarantee the consequence, of course, but I be expecting greater from us [Friday].’’
If historical past has any say in the proceedings Friday evening, the Rangers might have trigger for concern. The Lightning have won their final 17 playoff games immediately after a reduction.
“That’s not something you want to drop again on,’’ Lightning defenseman Zach Bogosian stated Thursday. “You can only say that when you execute it. That’ll be for us to do [Friday] night. Working experience is a big factor this time of year and we have a ton of it, so we’re a self-assured group.
“For whatever motive we’ve been ready to convert the web page seriously brief and this is heading to be no unique for us. The greater part of us have been all-around a prolonged time and we know what we require to do to rebound and regroup. We experienced a fantastic follow [Thursday] and we’re on the lookout forward to [Friday] night.’’
To the credit of the Tampa Bay gamers and Cooper, not a person of them blamed the nine-working day layoff without the need of a video game for Wednesday’s reduction.
“That’s in the earlier — we’re right back in the combat, so we’re hunting forward to it,’’ Bogosian stated.
“[Wednesday] night time was not what we preferred, but we know what we have in this place and what we can do,’’ Tampa Bay winger Nick Paul reported Thursday.
Cooper furnished the calming voice of motive.
“It’s Recreation 1, we have been by means of this before, we’ve gained sequence when we have missing the initially match and we’ve received sequence when we have won the 1st sport,’’ Cooper claimed. “There were points we did [Wednesday] we hadn’t completed a ton of in the previous two rounds. The Rangers have some dynamic players. If you give them an inch, they’ll just take a mile … and they did that. Give credit to them. They’re a excellent staff. Turk [Gallant] has received them rolling and they compete tricky. They didn’t fluke their way to exactly where they are in these playoffs.
“But in indicating that, we have far better in us.’’
The Rangers’ undertaking: Beware of the Lightning-swift bounce back.
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