With all of the high-powered offense that Tampa Bay has, goaltender Ben Bishop has consistently been one of the best goaltenders in the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
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Swedish defenceman Victor Hedman scored twice in a 4-0 win as the Lightning won the best-of-seven second-round series four games to one. They refused to let the Islanders have a chance of making a comeback.
The Lightning look like they will advance against the Islanders since they already hold a 3-1 series lead against them.
Brian Boyle doubled the Lightning’s advantage just five minutes later on the back of some fine work from Matthew Carle and Cedric Paquette, to hand the home side a two-goal cushion heading into the second intermission. We didn’t play ideal playoff games every time, but we’re getting contributions from everybody in the lineup.
“Start to finish, we played really well”, Lightning F Ryan Callahan said.
Although the pieces seemed to have fallen into place for Tampa, they are still missing forward J.T. Brown, defenseman Anton Stralman, and their captain, Steven Stamkos.
The Lightning beat the New York Rangers in the National Hockey League semi-finals past year before losing in six games in the Stanley Cup finals to the Chicago Blackhawks. Jonathan Drouin made a backhand pass that banked off the boards and Hedman scored on a blast from the right faceoff circle to give Tampa a commanding 3-0 lead.
Kucherov’s breakaway early in the third period was his NHL-leading ninth goal of the playoffs. “You know what to expect”, Hedman said. “We were hard on pucks, we made sure we got the puck in deep, we didn’t turn it over in the neutral zone and give them many opportunities”.
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In just 10 games, Tampa has advanced to the Eastern Conference finals. Bishop earned his 21st playoff victory with Tampa Bay, tying Nikolai Khabibulin for most in franchise history…. Stealing the show in the second round of the NHL Playoffs was Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman. Tavares had five goals and four assists in the Islanders’ first-round win over Florida.
