Vasilevskiy is back on top of his game
Whatever questions there were about Andrei Vasilevskiy after the first two games of the Eastern Conference Final, the Tampa Bay Lightning goalie has answered them in winning the past two, including a 4-1 victory against the New York Rangers in Game 4 on Tuesday that evened the best-of-7 series. After allowing nine goals on 62 shots in losing the first two games at New York, Vasilevskiy gave up three goals on 64 shots in the two games at Tampa Bay. He has not allowed an even-strength goal at home in the series. Of course, it helped that the Lightning cut down on the turnovers that led to numerous odd-man rushes and quality scoring chances in the first two games, but Vasilevskiy has regained the rhythm he had in the second round against the Florida Panthers, when he allowed three goals on 154 shots in a four-game sweep. -- Tom Gulitti, staff writer
Rangers need to get Vasilevskiy moving
Chris Kreider pointed it out in his postgame press conference Tuesday, and the Rangers forward is right. "It wasn't second- and third-chance opportunities in the first two home games," he said, "it was moving the puck east to west across the ice, getting the puck off your stick in less than a half a second." That's how the Rangers beat Vasilevskiy for nine goals, eight at even strength, in Games 1 and 2. They had the goalie moving, looking behind him and to the side. They scored five on his blocker side, which may have been a target for them, but they were making it difficult on Vasilevskiy because they were moving the puck quick and shooting quicker. He was flustered. That did not happen in Games 3 and 4. The Rangers did not move the puck east to west. They did not release shots quickly. As a result, they did not have many quality looks and did not force Vasilevskiy to make too many challenging saves. "Those are things we were doing in the first couple of games," Kreider said. "Those are things we've done successfully when we've generated offense through the course of the season. It's unselfish shooting." New York must get back to doing that in Game 5 on Thursday. -- Dan Rosen, senior writer
