Vasilevskiy on mission for Lightning entering Game 7 of Eastern 1st Round

MONTREAL -- Andrei Vasilevskiy is known to play head games with the opposition.

Ask the Montreal Canadiens, who were collectively shaking theirs in disbelief after the Tampa Bay Lightning goalie made 30 saves, many of the spectacular variety, in a 1-0 overtime victory in Game 6 of the Eastern Conference First Round on Friday.

The stakes were simple -- one goal against, and the Lightning season was over. But Vasilevskiy wouldn’t allow that to happen.

“If there was a mistake, it would have been really costly,” he said.

There wasn’t one. Not with so much on the line.

With a raucous Bell Centre ready to erupt in one grand deafening euphoric party, not to mention this entire city, the 31-year-old tuned out all the white noise, both in his crease and in the dressing room waiting for the start of overtime. He didn’t even digest anything his teammates or coach Jon Cooper were saying.

He was in his own world.

Vasy’s World.

“To be honest, I didn’t even really hear,” he said. “I was kind of 1-on-1 with my thoughts.

“Same as the crowd here; I don’t hear anything. Same as the locker room. I don’t listen to anything.”

He must have been joking, right? You can’t just tune out the verbal zings of more than 20,000 leather-lunged zealots who are taking turns either mocking you or singing “Ole Ole Ole Ole” deep into the night.

“No, seriously, too much is going on in my head to listen,” he said.

Such are the head games going on in Vasy’s World.

And, thanks in part to them, the Lightning were able to even the best-of-7 series, setting the stage for a dramatic Game 7 showdown at Benchmark International Arena in Tampa on Sunday (6 p.m. ET; The Spot, HBO MAX, truTV, TNT, SN, TVAS, CBC).

Let’s face it -- no player on either side has the potential of determining the outcome of the win-or-go home showdown and a second-round date with the Buffalo Sabres than Vasilevskiy.

Teammate Jake Guentzel had a simple explanation why that’s the case.

“Best goalie in the world for a reason,” he said.

Part of Guentzel’s reasoning: It’s as much about Vasilevskiy’s ability to bounce back from adversity as it is about his highlight-reel saves.

Rewind to the third period of Game 5 when Canadiens forward Alexandre Texier’s snap shot went off -- if not through -- Vasilevskiy’s glove for what proved to be the game-winner in Montreal’s 3-2 victory. Vasilevskiy called it a “good shot,” but he was criticized on the outside for a perceived lapse.

In Vasy’s World, he’ll tell you he didn’t hear the negativity aimed at him. Maybe. But the optics in Game 6 certainly made it seem as if he was a man on a mission attempting to prove the naysayers wrong.

He certainly did that, no matter the motivation.

“He has a history of that,” Cooper said when asked about Vasilevskiy’s ability to rebound after a stumble. “And as I’ve watched him on numerous occasions, the bigger the stakes, the more intense the game, he seems to rise to the occasion.”

To Cooper’s point: It was Vasilevskiy’s second career shutout in a game in which the Lightning could have been eliminated, joining Ben Bishop (2015) as their only goalies to ever accomplish the feat.

It’s a reason why there will be so much focus on him in Game 7, not that he’ll admit there is any.

Let’s give props to Canadiens rookie goalie Jakub Dobes too; through the first six games, there has been little margin to choose from between the two goalies, let alone their teams. Their respective goals-against averages symbolize that (Dobes 2.19; Vasilevskiy 2.20), but there is an enormous gap when it comes to experience. Vasilevskiy is on a path to the Hockey Hall of Fame, helping the Lightning win the Stanley Cup twice (2020, 2021), the Conn Smythe Trophy as postseason MVP (2021); and the Vezina Trophy as the NHL’s top goalie (2018-19); for which he is finalist again this season.

Will that be enough on its own to end Tampa Bay’s streak of being eliminated in the first round three consecutive times? That’s one of the more intriguing storylines heading into Game 7.

Let’s be clear about one thing too -- in Vasy’s World, there are times when the veteran goalie, considered one of the funnier players by his teammates, does give the outside world a rare peek of emotion, high and low. 

Remember the Stadium Series against the Boston Bruins on Feb. 1 when he and counterpart Jeremy Swayman dropped the gloves for the most famous goalie fight in recent memory?

Asked afterward if he’d ever been in a scrap before, he replied, “Just on the street, yes. It's not the same.”

“That was just an experience of a lifetime," he added about the Swayman bout. “I'll remember that for a long time. It was unreal.”

Much like his performance was in Game 6, in this case when it came to stopping pucks, not throwing punches. The Lightning will be looking for him to do the same Sunday.

Given it’s the only first-round series still to be decided, the entire hockey world will be watching. But Vasilevskiy won’t be paying attention to the hype before the puck is dropped, be it praise or criticism. As he revealed after Game 6, those thoughts are blocked out.

It’s all part of Vasy’s world.

“It comes from experience,” he said. “I mean, obviously, I mean, for sure, I’m losing it during the season. I’m a human too.

“But if I do, I do that by myself.”

Whatever works. Because in Vasy’s World, it does more often than not.