With an assist from Yzerman, Lightning learn to live with pressure

PITTSBURGH—It wasn't a long speech, but with Steve Yzerman, it rarely is. For him, it’s more about timing. And content.

With his team facing elimination against the Penguins, down in the first-round series 3-1, the Lightning general manager spoke briefly to his players at the team hotel in Pittsburgh.

He reminded them that he believed they were a good team. That one overtime goal was all that stopped the series from being tied through four games.

“We hadn’t played our best hockey yet,” Yzerman told Sporting News. “Let’s not give up because we’re facing a tough road.”

The message continued.

“He just said to go out and have fun. Don’t be afraid to make plays,” Steven Stamkos said. “This is what you dream of as a kid, to play in the Stanley Cup playoffs. He basically said, ‘Go out there, win a game and give yourselves a chance.’ ”

Victor Hedman and Tampa's young players played better as the series progressed. (AP Photo)They did—in that game and the next one. And in the most hostile of environments, a packed Consol Energy Center in Pittsburgh on Wednesday night for Game 7, they did it again. TERA Gold Their 1-0 win completed the comeback, and now there’s a chance to do much more than just extend a series. With each first-round game, Tampa’s young players like Stamkos, Victor Hedman and Steve Downie got better. They gained experience.

They started to believe they could succeed in the postseason. Lightning coach Guy Boucher told his youngest players that they had to learn, and they had to do it fast. With each game, he saw their confidence grow. He saw the nerves they’d shown playing in their own zone slowly disappear.

“Basically, they learned to execute under pressure,” Boucher said. “We had a lot of guys with no experience in the playoffs, basically half our team. We’re playing an experienced team that knows how to win battles… we knew it was going to be extremely hard. Our guys were nervous to start.”

They’re no longer nervous. RIFT Platinum Nerves have been replaced with something else.

“Just pure excitement right now,” Stamkos said. “We just won a playoff series, obviously my first playoff series, my first Game 7 and we battled back from a 3-1 deficit. We’ve shown that all year.”

They have a defense that’s not exactly fleet of skate. They have a 41-year-old goalie who would be the oldest player in the NHL if it weren’t for the ageless Mark Recchi. They surrendered their Southeast Division lead in early March to the Capitals, rift gold who blew past them and won that crown convincingly. When the season ended, they only outscored opponents by a total of seven goals. By comparison, the Canucks outscored opponents by 77 goals.

So there were doubts, to say the least.

But their Game 7 win revealed so much. Dwayne Roloson emerged as the best goalie of the first round. RIFT Platinum He made 36 saves in Tampa’s biggest game of the season, earning his first playoff shutout since 2006. He finishes the quarterfinals with the second-best goals-against average at 1.77. He has the best save percentage at .949. He was a rock for a team that needed one.

The Wayne Fleming-designed penalty kill dominated the Penguins, Rift Gold killing 34 of Pittsburgh’s 35 power plays. Fittingly, Game 7 ended with the Penguins unable to convert on a 6-on-4 for the final 1:33 of the game.

For one round anyway, concerns were alleviated. The slow defense might be exposed against a Capitals team that can actually score goals, but otherwise there’s not much left to doubt in the Lightning.


And really, they have. But there were still many concerns surrounding this team entering the postseason—really too many to consider them Stanley Cup contenders.