Lightning Push the Avalanche to Game 6 in the Stanley Cup Finals

Injuries, the salary cap and the stiffer competition all play a part, but so does exhaustion. During the last two seasons, the Lightning played until the end of the hockey calendar while nearly every other team was at home recuperating. The 2020 season was especially stressful because of Covid-related restrictions.

Cooper also acknowledged that his team had lost a stride or two playing in Denver a mile above sea level, particularly in Game 2, which the Avalanche won, 7-0.

But the Lightning were different from the team that lost the first two games of the series. Tampa Bay found its stride during early Colorado penalties and took a 1-0 lead with under five minutes left in the first period, when the defenseman Jan Rutta flew down the right side of the ice untouched and fired a booming slap shot under the glove of Colorado goalie Darcy Kuemper.

After starting the second period flat-footed, the Avalanche evened the score about five minutes into the period. Off a face-off, Colorado’s outstanding defenseman, Cale Makar, ripped a wrist shot from the right circle that Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy had initially stopped in his stomach area, then dropped. That allowed Valeri Nichushkin to sweep the puck into the net for his ninth goal of the playoffs.

Article source: https://www.nytimes.com/2022/06/25/sports/hockey/avalanche-lightning-stanley-cup.html