Speaking to reporters after the second game with Tampa, Sergei Bobrovsky said that he had not yet seen the video replay of his main rescue.
When asked to comment on the episode in detail, the Florida goalkeeper replied that he might not remember them.
That’s okay, because anyone who was on the Panthers’ home plate on Tuesday will never forget this moment.
We are talking about Bobrovsky’s incredible rescue, which happened 5 minutes and 57 seconds before the end of the second period: with a draw on the scoreboard, the Russian Florida goalkeeper made a save, looking at which it is difficult to believe your eyes.
“I saw this moment while I was on the bench. I was shocked. It’s incredible,” Panthers guard Aaron Ekblad said.
But Florida coach Paul Maurice failed to truly consider the moment. According to him, there was not the best visibility from his place, plus in that episode he was disappointed with the team’s actions, which led to the Lightning’s scoring chance.
“I spoke rudely about this moment. There was a lot of profanity on the ice and on the bench. From my vantage point you can’t see as much as you might think, so I had no idea how the puck ended up there. Some people got a lot of trouble, but thanks to Bob, we can all look back on that episode with laughter,” said the Panthers head coach.
What Maurice got to see was Lightning forward Anthony Cirelli moving the puck into the Florida zone. Tampa’s forward, who was being chased by Brandon Montour, managed to shoot, but the puck went wide. But, bouncing off the boards, it ended up on the other flank, where Steven Stamkos was.
Bobrovsky rushed to another corner, trying to cover the lightning captain’s throw and almost fell on his stomach. However, instead of shooting, Stamkos passed to Matt Dumba, who was in splendid isolation in front of the goal. Dumba threw with a shovel, but Bobrovsky somehow managed to turn around and jumped in the direction of the puck, deflecting it with his elbow.
It was the most incredible save of the 21 that the Russian goalkeeper made in this game.
You can call this rescue “Bob-Thief-Skeem.”
“I think I reacted a little late to the first shot, so I did it out of desperation, trying to close the gate as much as I could. We managed to make a save,” Bobrovsky noted.
The crowd of 19,500 people was initially stunned by what they saw, before breaking out into chants of “Bobby! Bobby!”.
“It was unthinkable. Of course, we know that he can make such saves, but this save of his is simply something. These are the guys who play on our team, delivering results when we need it most,” said Panthers defenseman Oliver Ekman-Larsson.
Steven Stamkos gave the best summary of the episode from Florida’s opponent’s perspective.
“You can call it skill, luck, whatever. But this is an athletic goalkeeper who makes desperate and damn cool saves,” the Lightning captain recorded.
Bobrovsky’s save was the most striking among the large number of timely saves that both Russian goalkeepers made in this meeting. Tampa Bay goalkeeper Andrey Vasilevsky finished the game stopping 34 of 37 shots.
The Lightning were able to upset Bobrovsky twice at the start of the second period, but after that he never capitulated. And overtime, in which Florida scored the winning goal thanks to an accurate shot by Carter Verhaeghe, simply could not have happened if not for that save by Sergei after Dumba’s shot.
“We have an amazing guy in goal. This moment will probably be in front of my eyes for the rest of my life. That’s what he can do. It’s simply impossible to explain this,” summed up Panthers captain Alexander Barkov.
