DENVER — Steven Stamkos answered question after question, dark circles under his eyes above an unkempt playoff beard. He stared straight ahead. He certainly wasn’t going to look behind him at the smoldering mess that was Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.
“People are gonna be watching this game and probably think the series is over. It’s a loss in the playoffs. We’ve got to man up as a team and as a person,” the Lightning captain said. “Let’s get back home in front of our fans, and let’s see what we’re made of.”
The Colorado Avalanche eviscerated the Lightning in Game 2, 7-0, to take a 2-0 series lead. The game was over in the first period. By the third period, the only uncertainty was when the Avalanche fans would have their Blink-182 singalong.
“Does it suck losing a game like that? For sure. We’re not used to it. It doesn’t really happen to us,” coach Jon Cooper said.
The back-to-back Stanley Cup champions are rarely beaten like that, but they’re not unbeatable. The rallying cry for the Lightning ahead of Game 3 on Monday night is that they’ve done this before: Down 2-0 to the New York Rangers in the Eastern Conference finals, they won four straight games.
But the Rangers aren’t the Avalanche. Game 2 at Madison Square Garden offered enough proof of concept to give Tampa Bay confidence it could figure its opponents out. Game 2 in Denver offered nothing close to that.
“We’re in the same situation as we were against the Rangers going home 0-2. And we found a way to win Game 3 at the end of the game there,” winger Corey Perry said. “It rejuvenated us. It got us going again.”
The Avalanche look faster and stronger, and played “as close to perfect of a game as you can get from your players,” as Colorado coach Jared Bednar put it. The Lightning don’t lack confidence, but have lacked in execution, pushback and results.
If they’re going to rally, this is the way. Here are five things that have to go right for the Bolts to win a third straight Stanley Cup, now that the Avalanche control this series.
No more terrible starts
When a balloon gets punctured, it sometimes does that thing where it’s chaotically propelled around the room by the leaking air until it’s entirely deflated. That was the start of Game 2 for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
The best 30 seconds of the game for the Lightning — perhaps their only good 30 seconds — came at the start, as their checking line got the puck deep into the Colorado zone and started getting to their forecheck. Things looked…
Click Here to Watch the Video from www.espn.com – NHL…