Lightning vs. Bruins playoff preview

Vasilevskiy, Hedman key for Tampa Bay against Krejci, Boston offense in second round

By NHL.com @NHLdotcom

August 22, 2020

The second round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs features eight teams in four best-of-7 series, which start Saturday.

Today, NHL.com previews the series between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Boston Bruins, which will be played at Scotiabank Arena in Toronto, the hub city for the Eastern Conference.

No. 2 Tampa Bay Lightning vs No. 4 Boston Bruins

Lightning:4-1 to win Eastern Conference First Round against No. 7 Columbus Blue Jackets; 2-1-0 (four points) in Qualifiers round-robin; 43-21-6, .657 points percentage in regular season

Bruins: 4-1 to win Eastern Conference First Round against No. 5 Carolina Hurricanes; 0-3-0 (zero points) in Qualifiers round-robin; 44-14-12, .714 points percentage in regular season

Season series:TBL 3-1-0; BOS 1-2-1

Game 1 is Sunday (8 p.m. ET; NBC, SN, TVAS)

The top two teams in the Eastern Conference in the regular season meet when they open their second-round Stanley Cup Playoff series.

Boston, which won the Presidents' Trophy as the League's top team in the regular season, is the fourth seed after not winning a game (0-3-0) in the round-robin portion of the qualifying round. They defeated the Hurricanes in five games in a first-round series that ended with a 2-1 victory on Wednesday.

"I think the team after the round-robin, I think we turned the page and we just played our game," said forward David Krejci, who leads Boston with nine points (three goals, six assists) in eight postseason games. "We had that great game plan, we knew exactly what to do, how to beat [Carolina]. We stuck with it and all four lines, they chipped in. Every game was a different line. That's what you need in the playoffs. Every game, somebody else steps up. That was huge."

CAR@BOS, Gm5: Krejci's PPG puts Bruins on the board

Tampa Bay held onto the second seed in round-robin play before defeating the Blue Jackets in five games in the first round, a series that ended with a 5-4 overtime victory on Wednesday. In the 2019 Stanley Cup Playoffs, Tampa Bay was the No. 1 seed in the East but lost to No. 8 seed Columbus in four games in the first round.

"We've got different lines that can bring different elements to the games," defenseman Victor Hedman said. "I just like the balance on our team, and we expect the best out of everyone every night and we proved that in the first round."

This will be the third playoff series between the teams. Each team has won once, with the Lightning winning the most recent, in five games in the 2018 Eastern Conference Second Round.

Tampa Bay defeated Boston 3-2 in the round-robin on Aug. 5, and won three of the four regular-season games between the teams, although each of the four games was within a goal in the last three minutes of regulation.

"A round-robin game that could've (gone) either way I thought; they scored late, with about two minutes to go, and we got ourselves back in that game," Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy said. "Right before the break (caused by the coronavirus) we had two really good games [against Tampa Bay]. We went up there (a 2-1 win, March 3), they beat us in our building (a 5-3 loss, March 7), both physical, both started to develop some animosity in those games."

Each team could look slightly different than it did in the regular season. Tampa Bay forward Steven Stamkos has been unfit to play since the postseason started and his status for this round remains unclear. Boston goalie Tuukka Rask, one of three finalists for the Vezina Trophy, awarded to the League's best goalie in the regular season, played all four regular-season games against Tampa Bay but he is no longer with the team, having left the bubble for a family emergency on Aug. 15.

Jaroslav Halak has won each of the past three games for the Bruins and is 3-1-0 with a 2.29 goals-against average and .912 save percentage.

This is the Lightning's third straight trip to the postseason. The Bruins have made the playoffs in each of the past four seasons, including a trip to the 2019 Stanley Cup Final, when they lost to the St. Louis Blues in seven games.

Game breakers

Lightning: Forward Brayden Point was the hero for the Lightning against Columbus, scoring the winner in the fifth overtime of Game 1 and again in overtime of Game 5. Coach Jon Cooper said the goals were two of the biggest in Lightning history. With Stamkos (lower body) yet to play this postseason, Point has been a difference-maker with 10 points (five goals, five assists) in eight games skating on a line with Ondrej Palat and Nikita Kucherov.

Bruins: Krejci. Former coach Claude Julien used to say that the Bruins go as Krejci goes; with the years passing and under a new regime, that hasn't changed much. The forward looks rejuvenated after the rest provided by the pause and has found chemistry with Jake DeBrusk and Ondrej Kase on the second line. He has also been promoted to the first power-play unit, scoring five of his points (two goals, three assists) with the man-advantage.

CBJ@TBL, Gm5: Point scores in OT

Goaltending

Lightning:Andrei Vasilevskiy has rebounded from a poor performance (.3.82 goals-against average, .856 save percentage) in a four-game sweep to the Blue Jackets in the 2019 playoffs. He won the Vezina Trophy last season and is a finalist this season. Vasilevskiy is 6-2-0 this postseason with a 1.98 GAA and .927 save percentage.

Bruins: With Rask's decision to leave Toronto to head home to his family, Halak is now the starting goalie for the Bruins. In his four games in the playoffs, Halak has a .912 save percentage and 2.29 GAA and, perhaps as important, the faith of his teammates and the knowledge that the net is his. It's not easy losing a goalie of Rask's caliber, but the Bruins are in the best position in the NHL to withstand that kind of loss.

Numbers to know

Lightning: Kucherov had three assists in Tampa Bay's series-clinching 5-4 overtime win Wednesday to become the Lightning's all-time leading scorer in the postseason with 70 points (31 goals, 39 assists), passing forward Martin St. Louis (68 points; 33 goals, 35 assists).

Bruins: The Bruins are 27-2 in the Stanley Cup Playoffs when forward Brad Marchand scores. The loss to Carolina in Game 2 of the Eastern Conference First Round marked the first time the Bruins lost a postseason game when Marchand scored since April 21, 2012. In 2019, when the Bruins made the Stanley Cup Final, the team went 8-0 when Marchand scored.

X-factors

Lightning: Hedman played 57:38 in the 3-2 victory in Game 1 against the Blue Jackets. Not only was it the most on the Lightning in the five-overtime game, but it came three days after he left a round-robin game against the Philadelphia Flyers with an apparent ankle injury. Hedman finished the series with two points (one goal, one assists), 22 shots, and averaged 31:07 of ice time.

Bruins:It's been a rocky postseason for forward David Pastrnak, who missed all but one practice in training camp and three of the five games against the Hurricanes. The right wing, who tied the Alex Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals for the most goals in the NHL in the regular season (48), has looked a bit rusty. He needs to find his hands and his game and regain the magic that makes the Bruins' top line work for the team to keep winning. Pastrnak has four points (one goal, three assists) in five postseason games; he has 47 points (18 goals, 29 assists) in 47 career playoff games

They said it

"First, we changed personnel. There's a difference upon itself. Second, as a coaching staff, we didn't revamp our system. We didn't need to do that. But we did tweak some things we needed to address. The pause helped us dig deeper into our team. During the regular season you don't get that much time to do that. And there was a lot of player buy-in. Everybody wants to succeed. We're all in this together and we've all kind of carried that attitude."-- Lightning coach Jon Cooper on the difference between this version of the Lightning and the one that was swept by Columbus a year ago.

"I'm proud of the guys. We went through a little bit of adversity -- every team's going through it here -- we did it with some of our personnel, but you sort of keep the trains running on time, so to speak, and do your job and our guys have really grasped that culture we've created here." -- Bruins coach Bruce Cassidy

Will win if …

Lightning:They find a way to get on the power play and convert once there. In the five-game series against the Blue Jackets, which included six overtime periods, the Lightning were 0-for-10 on the power play, and in eight postseason games are 13.3 percent (2-for-15). The Lightning were 23.1 percent on the power play in the regular season, tied for fifth in the NHL with the Toronto Maple Leafs, and had six players with at least 10 power-play points.

Bruins: They straighten out their 5-on-5 scoring. Of the 15 goals scored in the five-game series against the Hurricanes, eight were at even strength. It's a good sign that their power play (17.9 percent) has seemed to find its footing, but the Bruins need to also come through at even strength. The second line might be finding some chemistry, and some offense from DeBrusk, Krejci, and Kase would go a long way toward the Bruins advancing to the Eastern Conference Final.