A lot could happen in the Stanley Cup Final between now and Sunday morning.
Normally there would be at least one day off between contests in the league’s showcase showdown. But quick turnarounds have been a theme as the NHL tries to blast through to the bubble finish line. In keeping with that, Game 4 between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Dallas Stars is set for Friday night and puck drop for Game 5 will go 24 hours later on Saturday.
Two games’ worth of action and results could do a lot to swing a series presently led 2-1 by Tampa Bay, but you can bet nobody is looking too far ahead.
“I can assure you [neither team]is concerned about [Saturday] night at this point,” said Stars coach Rick Bowness. “They don’t want to let us back in the series and we don’t want to fall down 3-1.”
Tampa coach Jon Cooper confirmed Steven Stamkos — who returned from injury to score a goal in Game 3, but didn’t play after the first period — will not suit up for Game 4. However, Cooper did not rule out Stamkos for the rest of the series.
One thing Bowness would like to eliminate is the careless errors his club committed in Game 3 that allowed Tampa to jump out to a lead. Dallas entered this series with a well-earned reputation as one of the stingiest outfits in the league. Bowness acknowledged the attention to detail has simply not been there for the full 60 minutes, a fact that must change immediately.
“We beat ourselves the other night with the easy goals we gave them,” he said. “We’ve got to get our structure back, we’ve got to get our mentality back. We need to get out there and execute, we need to play with determination.”
Bowness also mentioned the need to get his defencemen involved on the attack. Wunderkind Miro Heiskanen — who was guilty of the awful giveaway that led to Nikita Kucherov opening the scoring on Wednesday night — has certainly not had the same positive impact in the final as he did in the lead-up to get here. And unfortunately for Dallas, some key forwards aren’t doing any better.
Not one member of the top line has found the net versus Tampa yet. As such, centre Tyler Seguin knows he and mates Jamie Benn and Alexander Radulov have to break through.
“I think we’ve had our chances that haven’t gone in and, obviously, we need [to create]more as well,” said Seguin, who has failed to score a goal in 19 of 21 playoff games. “It’s the oldest cliché of all time, your top players have to be your top players, so we have to find some production here.
“You start hoping things change. You want to get those looks every night, which have been happening. [You have to] stay with it, keep going to the dirty areas. I have to do my part, as well, for the full 60 minutes.”
Bowness has shown a willingness to break the trio up in the past when things aren’t going well. He acknowledged the unit has created some chances, but certainly didn’t sound married to the idea they would stay together.
“We’ll have to see what it looks like tonight,” he said.
Bowness — who said forward Blake Comeau was a game-time decision after not dressing in Game 3 — was similarly coy when asked if, with the back-to-back games, he had any pre-determined plan to either split the goaltending duties between Anton Khudobin and Jake Oettinger (Ben Bishop remains unfit to play) or ride Khudobin the whole way. He basically answered inquires on this front with, “Nice try.”
The bench boss, though, was much more transparent about his team’s chances to climb back into this series. Dallas trailed the Calgary Flames 2-1 in Round 1 before winning three straight and found a way to win a second-round Game 7 versus the Colorado Avalanche after the Avs took a late lead in that contest. Resilience is clearly part of the Stars’ makeup.
“I don’t think we’ve been the favourite going into any series, so we’ve been counted out before it begins,” Bowness said. “I don’t think that bothers us one bit. People count us out now, probably. We don’t, and that’s all that matters.”
As for the Bolts, they were in position to take a 3-1 chokehold on the Stanley Cup Final in 2015 versus the Chicago Blackhawks. It didn’t happen, and Chicago won the series in six games. While a lot changes in the course of half a decade and the scenarios aren’t perfectly aligned, there’s always something to be gained from past experience.
“I think the only common thing in that is up 2-1,” Cooper said. “Game 4 [in 2015]was on the road, so you’re playing in a little bit more of a hostile environment than you are in a fan-less bubble. But there’s little bits and pieces you take from everything.
“I can’t sit here and dwell on what happened in 2015; it was a phenomenal ride. But you pick up a little bit there, you pick up a little from what happened in ’16, a little bit from what happened in ’18 a little bit from what happened in ’19, you bottle it all up and hopefully it’s given you the experience to get through 2020.”
