The New York Rangers held serve at home against the Tampa Bay Lightning on Friday, holding on for a 3-2 win to take a 2-0 lead in the Eastern Conference Finals.
It was the Lightning who struck first, with Nikita Kucherov taking advantage of an early power play to put the reigning back-to-back Stanley Cup champions ahead 1-0 less than three minutes in.
But the lead would be short-lived, with K'Andre Miller squaring the ledger less than five minutes later, before Kaapo Kakko gave the Rangers a 2-1 lead heading into the second period.
In a clash between arguably the two greatest goaltenders in the game – New York's Igor Shesterkin and Tampa Bay's Andrei Vasilevskiy – the second period was a 20-minute scoreless stalemate, setting up a thrilling third frame.
However, much of the drama was sucked out of the contest when New York's Mika Zibanejad gave the Rangers a 3-1 buffer just two minutes into the period, and Shesterkin was determined to see it out.
A late Nicholas Paul goal set up a frantic final two minutes, but the Rangers' defense held firm, securing the win.
With the win, the Rangers snapped a streak of 17 consecutive Lightning wins following a playoff loss, with their last back-to-back playoff losses coming in April, 2019.
Speaking to the media after the win, Rangers defenseman Adam Fox – who had two assists – said his side are good at playing spoiler.
"We heard all year that [we weren't] really going to have playoff success," he said.
"We’ve said it all year, the belief in the room is high and the outside opinions isn’t really affecting anyone.
"Coming from down 3-1 [against the Pittsburgh Penguins], down 2-0 [against the Carolina Hurricanes] and [the Lightning] obviously had a good playoff streak of not losing back-to-back games, but that’s not really in our minds coming into the games.
"We're not thinking about what streaks teams have or how they've done earlier. It's right now, and we're just trying to bring it day in and day out.
"We did a great job limiting them, especially in the first two periods. We didn't make too many mistakes… [and] when we needed those big saves, we got them at the end, as usual."
Rangers coach Gerard Gallant called it "a huge win".
"It's a huge win for us, but we just get ready for the next one," he said.
"The way we played the last two games, that's the way we're going to have to play to win the series. We want to battle hard, we want to compete hard and we've been a tough out so far.
"We knew they were going to push real hard... [but] we battled, we found a way. We're playing against a real good team over there. They pushed it, we made some key saves at the end."
Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said his side was punished for their mistakes, but he hopes they will carry some momentum into the next fixture back in Tampa Bay after dominating the last 15 minutes.
"We haven’t executed the proper way that got us here," he said.
"They are a skilled team and make you pay. We found some momentum at the end – we have to carry that over."
Jamaica tops inaugural Ice Hockey Challenger Series
Jamaica’s Ice Hockey team emerged victorious in the final match of the Challenger Series after beating a very strong Lebanon team 12-8 at the College Ice Arena in Toronto on Saturday evening.
In a pulsating match played before hundreds of cheering supporters, Jamaica took the early lead in the first period but fell behind after Lebanon scored three unanswered goals over the next 15 minutes of the first period. During the second of three 20-minute periods, Jamaica regrouped and fought back to take a 6-4 lead, before Lebanon pulled level at 6-6.
Buoyed by the enthusiastic support from the massive crowd, Jamaica asserted their authority on the contest to end the period at 9–6. With victory in sight at the start of the third and final period, the Jamaicans applied pressure on their Lebanese counterparts and extended their lead to 11-7 with four minutes left in the game.
Tight defensive work then ensured Jamaica added to their tally, though they also conceded another goal in the latter stages of the encounter. Reggie Millette and Givani Smith both scored a brace, while Maleek McGowan, Captain Taos Jordan, Amari Sellers, Tyler Drummond, Dante Sheriff, Avery Grant, Josh Mitton, and Marquis Grant-Mentis got the others.
The Challenger Series is a new tournament involving Puerto Rico, Lebanon, and Jamaica, who are all associate members of the International Ice Hockey Federation (IIHF).
The Challenger Series began in Chicago in April, continued in New York in June, and culminated in Toronto on Saturday. At the end of the second leg in New York, Jamaica was in pole position and, as such, earned the automatic right to the final by virtue of the accumulation of points over the first two legs.
Lebanon defeated Puerto Rico 9-3 in the playoff for a spot in the final.
Across the three legs, Jamaica won six of their nine matches and now has an overall tally of 22 matches since it started to play competitively in 2019. Their record currently stands at 16 wins and six losses, with over 100 goals to their tally.
Don Anderson, president of the Jamaica Olympic Ice Hockey Federation (JOIHF), said the Federation is now setting its sights on establishing an ice rink in Jamaica as well as building a strong local program that will facilitate the team playing in qualifying tournaments for the Olympics. He added that expert opinion is that this team could be highly ranked globally if it had the opportunity to play at the next level amongst countries with Ice Rinks.
NHL free agency: Predators sign Stamkos, Marchessault, Skjei
The Nashville Predators came out aggressively on the first day of NHL free agency Monday with the additions of forwards Steven Stamkos and Jonathan Marchessault along with defenseman Brady Skjei.
Stamkos spent his entire 16-year career with the Tampa Bay Lightning after being selected with the No. 1 overall pick in the 2008 NHL Draft.
The 34-year-old Stamkos won two Stanley Cup titles with Tampa Bay and is the franchise leader in games (1,082), goals (555) and points (1,137).
Marchessault, 33, played the last seven seasons with the Vegas Golden Knights after being an original member of the expansion franchise in 2017-18.
He was the Conn Smyth Trophy winner as play-off MVP in 2023 after leading Vegas to its first Stanley Cup championship.
Marchessault set a career high this past season with 42 goals and leaves the Golden Knights as the club’s all-time leader in games (514), goals (192) and assists (225).
Marchessault and Stamkos were teammates for parts of the 2014-15 and 2015-16 seasons.
Skjei, 30, is also coming off a career season with a personal-best 47 points (13 goals, 34 assists) with the Carolina Hurricanes.
He began his career with the New York Rangers in 2015 and was traded to Carolina in February 2020.
Nashville was eliminated in the first round of the post-season in 2023-24 and has not won a play-off series since advancing to the Western Conference semi-finals in 2018.
Panthers top Oilers in Game 7 to win Stanley Cup
It took 30 years for the Florida Panthers to win their first Stanley Cup.
For Paul Maurice, the wait was nearly as long.
Sam Reinhart's tie-breaking goal late in the second period held up as the Panthers captured the NHL's most coveted trophy for the first time with Monday's 2-1 victory over the Edmonton Oilers in Game 7 of a memorable Stanley Cup Final.
Carter Verhaeghe also had a goal and Sergei Bobrovsky stopped 23 shots - including all nine he faced in the third period - to also give Maurice his first Stanley Cup after nearly 2,000 combined regular-season and play-off games as a head coach.
Maurice is in his 26th season leading an NHL team, the longest wait of any head coach in the four major North American professional sports leagues before winning his first championship.
While Maurice and the Panthers' long streaks came to an end, another continues on as the Oilers' loss marks the 31st consecutive season a Canadian team has not hoisted the Cup since the Montreal Canadiens' win in 1993.
Edmonton was also bidding to become only the second team in NHL history to win the Stanley Cup after losing the first three games of the best-of-seven finals, a feat the Toronto Maple Leafs accomplished in 1942.
Oilers' captain Connor McDavid still took home the Conn Smythe Trophy as the most valuable player of the play-offs after setting an NHL post-season record with 42 points. The superstar centre is just the second skater on a losing team to win the award, joining the Philadelphia Flyers' Reggie Leach in 1976.
McDavid recorded a pair of four-point outings in Games 4 and 5 to help Edmonton extend the series, but the three-time Hart Trophy recipient was kept off the scoresheet by a stout Florida defensive effort for a second straight game in Monday's finale.
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