The Tampa Bay Lightning are headed back to the Stanley Cup Final. They will go on and face the Montreal Canadiens starting Monday night at 8:00pm EST.
Yanni Gourde scored the lone goal of the game. The shorthanded goal was Gourde’s 5th of the postseason. Assists went to Anthony Cirelli and Alex Killorn.
Shots were 31-18 in favor of Tampa Bay. The New York Islanders were not generating solid scoring chances. Through sixty, they only generated six high danger chances. The Islanders have not won a conference final since 1984. They lost in 1993, 2020, and 2021. Tampa Bay however has appeared in the last three of four conference finals.
Islanders goalie, Seymon Varmalov had 29 saves on the night. He came up big for the Islanders early on in the game. The series belonged to the goalie. Aside from the abysmal game 5 performance, he won games for New York. The blueline deserves a round of applause for their performance and effort throughout the postseason as well.
Goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy earned his fourth shutout of the postseason. It was his fifth career postseason shutout, and he is the first goalie to have three shutouts in series winning games. All of these have occurred since Game 6 of the 2020 Stanley Cup Final.
Nikita Kucherov, who was injured in game six, was in the lineup for game seven. Kucherov played just one shift Wednesday night. This will be the third straight Stanley Cup Final appearance for Pat Maroon. 2019, with St. Louis and the last two years with Tampa.
Puck drops Monday night. The underdog and super team will face off for the ultimate prize. Who will lift Le Coupe Stanley?
Down the Frozen River 
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