Friday, 4 a.m.
The other guy was larger than the net.
New York goalie Igor Shesterkin was terrific Thursday night. He was intimidating, agile, smothering. He looked the part of a former Vezina winner.
Andrei Vasilevskiy?
He was better.
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Vasilevskiy completed a rare back-to-back sweep, adding a 2-1 shootout victory over the Rangers one night after stopping Montreal. For the two nights, Vasilevehad 70 saves -- plus five more in the shootout -- and ran his victory total to 15 for the season. He stopped breakaways, he stopped point-blank chances and perhaps most importantly, he stopped Adam Fox's final attempt in the shootout for the victory. He helped the Bolts kill off a penalty in overtime.skiy "I felt all right until that four-on-three in overtime," Vasilevskiy said. "Our d-corps did a tremendous job." To
It was high-paced entertainment. Vasilevskiy had 45 saves and Shesterkin -- who come from Moscow, just a little over 1,000 miles form Vasileveskiy's home of Tyumen, had 39.
"We knew it was going to be a different animal than last night," Steven Stamkos said.
Brayden Point scored the Bolts only regulation goalie, bouncing the puck off Shesterkin’s leg. Point also scored in the shootout, bouncing his shot off the post. The winner in the shootout came from Alex Killorn.
"That was a good hockey game,' said Lightning coach Jon Cooper. "You play 82 of them, but you could have inserted that for any one of the playoff games last year. Wildly entertaining. Making saves. Posts ringing at both ends of the ice."
The Bolts had one goal disallowed when Brandon Hagel swatted the puck out of Shesterkin's hands.
"It's the old 'if you ain't cheating. you ain't trying' thing," Cooper grinned. "He grinned at me and said 'Do you think that will be all right.' In the era of HD cameras, it's not going to work. Just gamesmanship. Just a reaction. They made the correct call."
The Bolts play against Arizona Saturday at 5 p.m. at Amalie Arena.
