Stamkos Catches Fire, Bishops Shuts Up Shop, Rangers Behind the 8-Ball

No matter which way we were going to cut it last night, someone was going to end up being behind the 8-ball. After a 2-0 loss at home, the New York Rangers are immediately under a lot of pressure, as they now have to go back down to Tampa Bay and try to avoid elimination and force a Game 7, back in their own rink.

A solid team defense effort from the Tampa Bay Lightning was key to a big win, forcing numerous turnovers, a couple of which led to scoring chances, some even to the two goals that the Lightning scored in the 2nd period.

The Rangers were not necessarily having a bad game in Game 5, as their forecheck was generating some turnovers in the offensive zone as well, but Lightning keeper, Ben Bishop, stood up to the test and held the home team from the scoresheet in all three periods, picking up the 4 points for the shutout.

Steven Stamkos and Valtteri Filppula each picked up 2 points each in the pool in the victory, as they both came around in a game where the Rangers took away the Lightning's best line in the playoffs.

The Rangers will be in tough in Tampa Bay on Tuesday night, another 6pm MT start on CBC.

The lead dropped down to 12 points tonight, but time is running out on the teams that are specifically in the race for 1st place, because once the available players drops down to six, it will be next to impossible to catch top spot.

Even though Fontanna's lead seems to be shrinking, there might only be three games left in these Conference Finals, which would bode well for her team.

The race for 2nd place heated up once again in the Eastern Game 5, as Thor clawed back those 2 points he was behind Jesse, now sitting in a tie for the spot, but without the first tie-break, which is goals for.  Jesse's team is 10 goals better than Thor's, but Thor's team does have the better goalies, which could be a make or break for his team down the stretch.

Stacey M. is now 6 points out of the money and doesn't seem to be making up any ground, while Sean L. is now 10 points back and not having a great deal of luck.