Devils at Lightning
The Tampa Bay Lightning look to put their depth on display again when they host the New Jersey Devils on Saturday afternoon in Game 2 of their first-round Eastern Conference playoff series. The Lightning received one late point from their top line Thursday, but Ondrej Palat posted three while Tyler Johnson and Yanni Gourde recorded two apiece in a solid 5-2 Game 1 victory.
Nikita Kucherov, a 100-point scorer this season, registered an empty-net goal while top-line partners J.T. Miller and captain Steven Stamkos were kept off the scoresheet as Tampa Bay’s other three trios took the lead Thursday. “It gives us confidence, but Saturday is also a new game,” Palat told reporters after notching a goal and two assists. “It’s going to start 0-0. We just need to keep the momentum going and play like we did in the first and third period (Thursday).” The Devils outshot the Lightning 15-7 in the middle period and closed within a goal midway through the third, but never could quite recover from a slow start. “We looked a little bit tentative, a little bit unsure, but I thought we settled into the game, particularly in the second period,” New Jersey coach John Hynes told reporters. “I thought the second half of the game was a little more of how we wanted to play. We’ll regroup and we’ll be a better team Saturday.”
TV: 3 p.m. ET, NBC, CNBC, TVA2, Sportsnet East, Sportsnet Ontario
ABOUT THE DEVILS: Hart Trophy candidate Taylor Hall recorded a goal and an assist in his first career playoff game Thursday, but the left wing along with his linemates Kyle Palmieri and Nico Hischier had a combined minus-5 rating. Travis Zajac, who centered a gritty line with Blake Coleman and Stefan Noesen, scored the other goal for New Jersey on Thursday and had seven tallies in the team’s last playoff run in 2011-12. Goalie Keith Kinkaid, who went 7-0-1 to end the regular season and earned the start, turned aside 27 of the 31 shots he faced in his first postseason appearance in Game 1.
ABOUT THE LIGHTNING: Gourde missed two point-blank chances in the first period of his first playoff game, but scored a power-play goal in the second and set up linemate Alex Killorn’s tally that put Tampa Bay up 4-2 with 7:46 to go. “Yanni Gourde was being Yanni Gourde,” coach Jon Cooper told reporters. “He’s not afraid to go anywhere on the ice. He’s like a little water bug out there. He’s hard on pucks. He’s quick on pucks. But the big thing is he’s right around the net.” The Palat-Brayden Point-Johnson line, which was often matched with Hall’s unit, combined for six points and eight shots.
OVERTIME
1. Devils D Sami Vatanen, who played 40 playoff games with Anaheim before being acquired in midseason, logged a team-high 26:32 of ice time Thursday.
2. Kucherov (23) and Johnson (22) are closing in on Vincent Lecavalier (24) for second on franchise’s all-time playoff goal-scoring list.
3. New Jersey C Pavel Zacha was 2-10 in the faceoff circle as the Devils lost that battle 38-35 overall in Game 1.