Tampa. Anyone who thought it would be easy for the New York Rangers after their two wins over Tampa in Manhattan should think again.
On Sunday evening, the defending champions won at home at the Amalie Arena and cut the conference final with a fair 3-2 victory.
“If we lose again, there’s no tomorrow, so I’m very happy we made it through,” says Victor Heidmann, who netted his 100-point playoff point, when Sportbladet met him after the final signal.
Admittedly, it was tough for Lightning even in the third round against the New York Novices.
They ended up losing 2-0 in the second half – after a fresh direct shot into the goal from ridiculous heat Mika Zibanjad – With one minute left of normal match time, the score was still 2-2.
But when the clock struck 19.18 in the third period, Ondrej Palat, after superb preparation by Victor Hedmann and Nikita Kotgerov, was able to criticize the decision.
– Very nice, of course. It was such an indispensable match for us that if we had lost again, there would be no tomorrow, Hedman says when we meet him at the outskirts of Amalie Arena afterwards.
– But we played much better than we did in New York. There was no mistake of will either, we made a lot of mistakes and avoided that day. Now it’s just a matter of reloading and trying the next game as well.
Zipanegad is close to the Swedish record
Fiji himself had assists and thus reached a 100-point career breakout point.
– Actually I had no idea. I’m keeping track of the stats on the primary series but it seems like it’s not what’s going on in the playoffs, he smiles.
– Of course it’s big, but it testifies above all that I’ve been in many matches in the qualifiers and now I probably don’t remember something I don’t think about.
Zibanijad also mentioned, in addition to his goal, assisting in the match, thus he now stands with 24 points in this year’s playoffs. Peter Forsberg, Henrik Zetterberg and Per Erik Eklund share just three points from the Swedish record in playoff points.
The next game in the series — which the Rangers are still leading 2-1 — will be played in Tampa on Wednesday night.