in America, the Russian goalkeeper gave the salvation of the year! He didn’t see the throw and did the incredible

144 points in the playoffs, the Art Ross Trophy, absolute dominance in the National Hockey League – Tampa forward Nikita Kucherov completely dominated the 2023/24 NHL regular season. According to the vast majority of experts, the Lightning would not even have made it to the playoffs if they had not had a Russian genius on their roster. This version is confirmed by the numbers – the Russian was ahead of the second scorer of the team in the first part of the season by 54 points.

Naturally, everyone expected an equally powerful continuation of the Stanley Cup from Kucherov – it seemed that, driven by the strength of the powerful regular season, he would be able, if not to lead the Lightning to the trophy, then at least to help them get through one or two rounds. Alas, for now these expectations remain the problems of those who believed in Nikita.

Perhaps it was the forceful pressure that Florida began to exert on the Russian leader of Tampa from the first minutes of the first meeting. Perhaps the Panthers just found a way to neutralize him. Or perhaps Kucherov was so carried away by the very race for Art Ross that he simply did not have the strength left for cup exploits. But the fact remains that he doesn’t look like himself in the playoffs yet.

The second game of the series started even worse for the Lightning than the first – then they got an early goal, but managed to come back by the break. This time, after 20 minutes, Florida led 2:0. The hosts’ second goal was scored by Vladimir Tarasenko, who was in the right place at the right time and scored for the first time in the current playoffs.

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And then there was the second period, which turned out to be just a hurricane. Between the two teams, they made 29 shots on target, and the course of the game was turned upside down. At first, Tampa fought back within just five minutes. Their second goal came on the power play, in which Kucherov assisted, and Steven Stamkos hit the decisive shot.

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But the most interesting thing is that based on the results of this period of the game, the Lightning could well have taken the lead. Unfortunately for them and fortunately for almost all hockey fans, Matt Dumba’s scoring chance ended up being a save that will likely go down as the best of this playoffs or even the entire NHL season.

The defender found himself in front of Florida’s empty goal, Sergei Bobrovsky had his back to him, but in some incredible jump he was able to help his team out without looking. Phenomenal!

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The third twenty minutes turned out to be much calmer and neater; the opponents, as expected, played out to overtime, where everything was over in three minutes. Former Tampa forward Carter Verhaeghe scored in the first game of the series, and he became the Lightning’s gravedigger in the second – 3:2 in the match and 2-0 in the series. Without the tearing Kucherov, these “Lightning” are not capable of anything!

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