Tampa Bay evens score
TAMPA, Fla. — Two nights before, Jarome Iginla had made a pretty convincing opening argument in his case for the title of Hockey’s Best Young Player.
On Thursday night, Vincent Lecavalier, Brad Richards and Martin St. Louis offered a three-pronged rebuttal. Their presentation was similarly powerful.
And after Lecavalier had finished dominating, Richards had finished dangling and St. Louis had finished dancing, the Tampa Bay Lightning had a resounding 4-1 triumph over the Calgary Flames at the St. Pete Times Forum. And the NHL had a crackling Stanley Cup Finals heading to stoked Alberta all even at a game apiece.
Asked following the Lightning’s morning skate whether he was confident that his team could rebound from its listless Game 1 performance, Lecavalier replied: “I have no doubt.”
Perhaps that was because he knew he was about to play the kind of game that was reminiscent of Mark Messier’s tone-setting Game 2 performance against the Devils in the ‘94 semifinals. Like Messier with Scott Stevens, Lecavalier used his first shift to put an enemy defenseman (Robyn Regehr) on the seat of his pants behind the opposing net.
Having established that he would be spending the night impersonating a bull, Lecavalier then showed off his more renowned creative side. Banking a puck off the base of the back of the Calgary net to shed Stephane Yelle — a la Wayne Gretzky, who was in attendance — Lecavalier centered a pass for Jassen Cullimore.
The defenseman’s slapper produced the rebound that the surging Ruslan Fedotenko (seven goals in the last eight games) second-efforted past Calgary goaltender Mikka Kiprusoff 7:10 into the match for the critical first goal.
“Vinny’s a talented player,” said Tampa Bay coach John Tortorella, who has spent three years trying to prod more out of Lecavalier. “It’s not the moves that I thought were the most important part of Vinny’s game tonight. I thought it was his presence. You saw him maturing, showing his team: ‘Follow me.’ “
“I thought Lecavalier and their defense dominated, especially in the first part of the game,” Calgary coach Darryl Sutter said afterward. “I think he followed Jarome’s lead from the other night.”
Actually, Lecavalier said he was following the example set by Philadephia captain Keith Primeau, with whom he had done battle in the conference finals. “I tried definitely the last four or five games to be more physical,” Lecavalier said. “I tried tonight, especially in the first period, to try to hit their D. It’s working and I’m going to keep working at it.”
Playing from behind, Calgary couldn’t simply clamp down as it had in Game 1. And though the Flames survived the raucous first period and the trench warfare of the second without further damage, the Lightning were obviously poised to strike again.
They did so early and often in the third period. And on goals by Richards, Dan Boyle and St. Louis within a dizzying span of 3:07 in the first six minutes, Tampa Bay burst out to a 4-0 lead and all that was left was for the teams to attempt to send some fist-delivered messages in anticipation of Saturday night’s Game 3 at Calgary.
Ville Nieminen scored midway through the third period for Calgary.
Richards’ goal bodes well
When Brad Richards scores, the Tampa Bay Lightning are unbeatable.
Richards tied a playoff record in Game 2 when he netted his sixth winning goal of this postseason.
He also scored the deciding goal in Game 3 of the first round against the New York Islanders, Games 3 and 4 in Montreal during the second round, and the first and fifth games against Philadelphia in the Eastern Conference finals.
But more importantly, Tampa Bay is 29-0-2 this season — including 7-0 in the playoffs — when Richards scores.
He stretched the Lightning’s advantage to 2-0 in the third period of their 4-1 victory over the Calgary Flames.
“You score goals throughout the game you hope are big goals,” the fourth-year forward said. “The goal tonight was just to get that two-goal cushion. Ends up they score and I got the game-winner.”
Penalty plethora
Referees Stephen Walkom and Brad Watson called 32 penalties, totaling 124 minutes in Game 2.
The split between the Lightning and Flames was pretty even. Calgary served 64 minutes on 17 infractions, and Tampa Bay was whistled for 15 penalties that added up to 60 minutes.
Calgary was 1 for 7 on the power play, but failed five times in the first 23 minutes. Tampa Bay finished 1 for 6 with the advantage.
“Obviously there was a summit yesterday or sometime in the last 36 hours in Florida,” Sutter said. “Just ride with it, I guess.”
Asked why he wasn’t invited, Sutter said: “I don’t have that degree.”
Most of the calls came in the third period when the game got out of hand. There were even two fights, a rare occurrence in the postseason.
Scapinello’s stripes
Retiring linesman Ray Scapinello worked his 51st Stanley Cup finals game, spanning 20 years in the championship series.
The 57-year-old Scapinello trails only Matt Pavelich (56 games), George Hayes (54) and John D’Amico (52) for finals games officiated by a linesman. Scapinello holds the regular-season record, having worked 2,500 games. His career began in 1971, eight seasons before Calgary coach Darryl Sutter began playing in the NHL.
— The Associated Press contributed to this report.