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Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper says all the right things. He says the team is relaxed. He says they’ve been in these types of situations before. He says his team is ready.
All those statements may be true, but make no mistake about it, Cooper and his team know that they face a must win Game 2 at home against the Chicago Blackhawks.
The Blackhawks have experience on their side. They are trying to cement a legacy. Three titles in a six-year span is something special. It’s only been done a handful of times since the league expanded beyond the Original Six in 1967. The Blackhawks never panic, as proven in Game 1. Conversely, they almost never let a team off the hook when they have them on the ropes.
The Lightning face a must-win game Saturday night in Tampa. If they falter again at home, they face the unenviable task of going back to Chicago down 2-0 in the series and needing to beat the Blackhawks in four of the next five games to win the Stanley Cup, with three of those games in Chicago. That simply isn’t going to happen.
Cooper would never say that the task is impossible, but he knows it. He knows what type of team the Blackhawks are. He knows about their experience and talent level, and he knows that he can’t let this series get out of control.
The Lightning aren’t out of this series by any means. A win in Game 2 puts them in the situation where they can split in Chicago and make it a best-of-three series with two games in Tampa. But a loss in Game 2 leaves them an insurmountable task. The Blackhawks smell blood in the water. They know they have the Lightning down and are close to taking a dominant lead in the series.
Tampa Bay has their work cut out for them. They are going to have to play at their highest level of the year to get back in this, but they have proven that they can win games with their backs against the wall. They did it multiple times against the Detroit Red Wings, and they won a Game 7 on the road against the New York Rangers. The task is not impossible, but if they lose Saturday night, it almost certainly is.
Bill Zimmerman is a featured writer for RantSports. Follow him on Twitter or like him on Facebook.
