The Tampa Bay Lightning beat the Boston Bruins 3-1 on Sunday to become the first team to advance to the conference finals in the Stanley Cup Playoffs this year. After dropping Game 1 of the series, the Lightning won four straight to seal the series. Winning four in a row against Boston came as a surprise to even Lightning captain Steven Stamkos.
“We thought Game 1 we were a little rusty from that layoff. We knew we had better,” Stamkos said in a postgame interview with NBC. “This group’s pretty special. You can just feel the calming influence we have in this room with the leaders we have on this team. No one probably would have predicted — including ourselves — that we’d beat a team of that quality in four straight games, but we found a way and it feels good.”
The Lightning finished with 113 points to lead the Eastern Conference in the regular season, so expectations were high for them entering the postseason. But the Bruins were just a point behind and had the second-best goal differential in the conference during the regular season. Boston was a very good team, and seeing them lose four in a row is surprising. Maybe a missed call here or there goes Boston’s way and the series would have been extended.
