Tight Defensive Game Eliminates the Rangers

Before the start of Game 7, if you would have asked me, I would have thought a close game would have benefitted the Rangers and that if the Bolts were going to win, it would have been a shootout at the OK Corral.  Instead, the Lightning were going punch for punch in the defensive zone, if not dominating the ground game and the body blows for the most part, allowing themselves to not only stay in the game, but be the better team in it, away from home.

Lots was said about records going into this Game 7, how unbeatable players and teams were, but those records again meant a whole lot of nothing on the ice, because they still had to play the game.

No score into the 3rd period, but the flow of the game was towards the Rangers net, Henrik Lundqvist was having to do quite the job to keep the Rangers in this one, as his side only had 11 shots on the Tampa goal through two, while he had to make 19 stops at the same time... and his team had two power plays in the middle frame.

In a game where there was so much defense and solid play in each team's end, it should come as no surprise, when the opening goal was of the ugly variety, as Alex Killorn cut to the middle of the ice with the puck on his backhand, letting a low shot go and it got the bounces, all the way through Lundqvist's legs.  It wasn't pretty, but the expectation of pretty wasn't really there, one team just had to get the puck to the net for it to go in and the Lightning were the first to do so, less than two minutes into the 3rd.

Halfway through the frame, as the Rangers started to pick up their offensive game again and try to establish some more zone time at the other end, the Lightning were able to score off the transitional rush and it was Ondrej Palat, who sniped one over Lundqvist's shoulder and the Lightning led 2-0 with just over eight minutes to play.

The Rangers needed a goal, they had the puck, they pulled the goalie with four minutes to play, but the Lightning defense was perfect, as pointed out by Elliotte Friedman in the post-game, the Rangers didn't get a shot in the last seven minutes of the frame and Ben Bishop only had to make a total of 22 saves for the shutout, as the Lightning won Game 7 with a 2-0 score.

Not only did Bishop blank the Rangers, he had his 3rd assist of these playoffs as well, making it a 5-point night for the Tampa keeper, while Killorn had a 2-point night, scoring the winner in this one as well.

The Rangers were only the favourite by two selections in this series, so saying that this was a real upset in the pool wasn't really the case.  Too close to call and you had an argument going each way.  Nevertheless, this is the time of the year where a lot of key eliminations happen and there were 88 picks stricken from the record with this Rangers loss.  Henrik Lundqvist and Derek Stepan were two of the most popular players in the pool, taken 18 and 16 times, respectively, so it works out to be a huge loss for a lot of teams in this way.

You could argue that scoring was an issue for the Rangers, as their leading point-getter was Lundqvist and even with a couple Game 7's, the best forward was Derick Brassard and he only had 17 points in the pool, including one winner.  Rick Nash only scored 5 goals in total, no winners, while Stepan had 5 goals and only one winner.  The Rangers surely could have used more from their big guys, in order to make the move back into the Finals.

Lots of credit to the Lightning though, they really made life difficult for the Rangers on more nights that they had it tough and that's the story of that series, in a nutshell.

After the pool audits for the Eastern Conference teams, the race for 2nd place is still the only one that really exists.  Thor vaulted over Jesse with the win, thanks to the Bishop points.  Thor finished the East Finals with a 3-point lead over Jesse, thanks to the huge Tampa goalie, but it is nearly impossible for either team to possibly catch 1st place, to which the gap to Fontanna is now 15 points.

For 2nd & 3rd, they also appear safe in their own little bubble, as Sean L. is in 4th place and is now 9 points back and will drop to five players with the result of the West Finals game tonight.  Stacey M. is now 11 points back of the money and would need a huge effort by the Ducks to possibly work their way back into contention for 3rd place.

Looks like the concentration will be on 2nd & 3rd place tonight, which will be key going forward.  Thor has Frederik Andersen of the Ducks, while Jesse has Corey Crawford of the Blackhawks and it would be nearly impossible for Jesse to work his way back into 2nd place, if he doesn't have a goalie in the Finals.

The intrigue for one position in the standings mounts... where are you going to be watching the game?