TAMPA, Fla. – If you saw the fantasy fanatics in anime costumes sharing elevators with road-tripping Chicago Blackhawks diehards, you would sense we were in for a weird one.
Saturday night’s pivotal Game 5 of the Stanley Cup Playoffs would nudge the Tampa Bay Lightning to the brink of nice try, the Blackhawks to the brink of a dynasty, and Steven Stamkos to the brink of the kind of goal slump that marred the beginning of his post-season.
It was also taking place a crossbow’s pull away from a cosplay convention, scheduled in downtown Tampa at the same time as the Cup Final.
When fans skirted past the Stormtroopers and dragon queens, the Lycra and fake blood spatters, and into Amalie Arena, they were greeted with a surprise starting goalie and a funky goal that proved to be the difference in another 2-1 game.
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“This series has been expect the unexpected,” said Tampa coach Jon Cooper. “Hey, we’re still alive. This is not near over.”
Here are 14 things we learned from Game 5 in Tampa Bay.
1. Triplets in serious trouble.
With 22 points, Nikita Kucherov is the second-highest scorer in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He has out-scored Patrick Kane and Jonathan Toews, and he is one third of the most dangerous line alive.
He also crashed neck/shoulder-first into Corey Crawford’s goal post in the first period and never returned. There was no update on Kucherov’s condition post-game.
Throw in leading scorer Tyler Johnson’s injury—a suspected broken finger on his right hand has prevented him from taking face-offs—and the Triplets are in a war against health.
“That’s what the playoffs is. You’re going to go through some adverse moments,” said Stamkos, who slid into Kucherov’s spot. “He’s a big player, clutch guy for us who has played extremely well to get us here. Whether he goes or not, we have guys capable of stepping up and we have no choice but to find a way.”
2. Antoine Vermette was worth it after all.
He started these playoffs as a healthy scratch who couldn’t find his niche with Chicago. Now he’s a hero.
Vermette has a modest four playoff goals, but his last three have been game-winners: one a double-OT life-saver versus Anaheim, and now two road winners in Tampa. That’s worth a first-rounder, no?
3. Stamkos is still on the schneid.
Not having scored a goal in his last seven games, the Tampa Bay Lightning captain is on track to end these playoffs the way he started them. (He didn’t bulge the twine until his ninth playoff game.)
Sixteen shots in this final, no glory.
“We’ve got one game. It’s going to come down to how much we want to extend our season and what we’re willing to do,” Stamkos said, drained for the night. “This group has come too far to not leave it all out on the ice next game.”
4. Patrick Sharp makes scoring look easy.
When Bishop left the blue paint to play a dumped puck in the first period, he was steamrolled by defenceman Victor Hedman, who clearly should’ve been the only one going for it. Both Lightning players hit the deck, and Sharp—the first forechecker on the scene—walked the puck into an open net.
“I saw them going for a change and I thought I would be able to catch them,” Bishop explained. “Heddy was coming for it, but you can’t really hear anything in the building when it’s that loud. And you saw the result.”
5. But maybe Corey Crawford should’ve been called for playing the puck outside the trapezoid first?
6. Chicago’s leading scorer still isn’t acting like it.
It took Kane until Game 4 to reach the final’s scoresheet (an assist) and he has still not scored in six games.
On this night, the credit goes to Victor Hedman, who gave Kane no space to get creative in an important flow-on-flow matchup.
“Obviously you want to demand the puck. You want to have it as much as you possibly can because you feel like good things can happen when it’s on your stick,” Kane said. “But it’s a tight-checking series. Every game’s been a one-goal game. Probably not as much scoring as most people thought coming into the series.”
7. Ben Bishop’s back, baby.
Playing through what we suspect to be a groin injury, Bishop took back his net and only allowed two goals, looking much sharper than his belabored win in Game 3.
He made 17 stops and one poor decision.
“I felt better,” Bishop said. He feels like he’ll play Game 6 Monday.
8. Hurt, schmurt.
Three of Tampa’s most important players are banged up—Johnson, Bishop, Kucherov—and those are just the ones we know about.
Johnny Oduya might still be skating through an upper-body injury. Bryan Bickell (scratched the last two games) is coming off a case of vertigo, and Andrew Shaw may or may not have given Victor Hedman rabies.
No matter.
When the stakes are this great, Kane says, “you’re running on adrenaline anyways.”
“You’re playing or you’re not playing at this point,” Brian Boyle said. “It’s 100-plus games in and we play a contact sport.”
9. One-goal margins leave no room for error.
The City of Chicago’s sports teams use the hashtag #OneGoal to express their common pursuit of a championship, and the Cubs broadcasted Game 5 during a rain delay at Wrigley.
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But the one-goal theme of Hawks-Bolts has been incredible. Not once in five outing have these fleet, flawed titans been separated by more than a single goal. That has never happened before in the Stanley Cup Final.
10. Marian Hossa is a treat to watch every single shift.
Though he hasn’t been splattered all over the scoresheet, the two-way forward has been playing virtually mistake-free hockey.
Coach Joel Quenneville said Hossa is “for sure” having a Hall of Fame career.
“He’s just the ultimate hockey player, the ultimate teammate, the ultimate human being. He’s everything you want in a person,” said Kane. “You look at him, he seems ageless. It seems like he’s skating as well now as he did when he came to our team back in 2010.”
11. James van Riemsdyk has got his brother’s back.
The Toronto Maple Leafs forward was in Chicago to cheer on his younger brother, who has a shot to become the family’s first Cup winner.
“I’ve definitely texted with him a whole bunch through this process. He’s been great,” Trevor van Riemsdyk said. “Just making sure I stay in the moment and enjoy this so looking back I can have some fond memories.”
12. Patrick Sharp figures he’ll be the first to know if he gets traded.
Well aware of the swirl of trade rumours and Chicago’s troublesome cap situation, Sharp tried to quiet the noise Saturday, noting the strength of his relationship with GM Stan Bowman.
“This team’s been through that before with winning Stanley Cups and salary-cap issues,” said the most handsome man still playing. “Whatever you hear, it’s usually false. Most likely, I’ll be the first guy to hear about it anyway.”
13. These teams are disciplined.
Neither team is committing many penalties—just five combined minors Saturday—nor engaging in much after-whistle foolishness. There is a sense that the weight of the moment is firmly arrived.
Throw in the fact that neither side has been particularly dominant on the power-play, and we’re looking at a series that should be decided by five-on-five play.
14. NBC play-by-play legend Doc Emrick showed me his Game 5 cheat sheet.
And it’s this awesome handwritten, colour-coded document prepared by a kind genius.
