How improbable must this be! The Tampa Bay Lightning have been underdogs in every single game in the Eastern Conference Finals. They haven't had their Vezina Trophy contending goalie for basically this entire series. They've been playing against a team which hadn't lost two straight games since January 12 and 15. And yet here they are just one win away over the Pittsburgh Penguins from the Stanley Cup Finals.
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ODDS ANALYSIS
Nothing is going to change at this point. The books have lived and died with Pittsburgh as the favorite, and there's no way that's changing in this game even though Amalie Arena is going to be as electric as could be. The margins were -127 and -140 in Games 3 and 4, and this one could teeter on the higher end of that, especially if Ben Bishop isn't able to get back on the ice.
GOALIE REPORT
But who needs Bishop when you've got Andrei Vasilevskiy? Vasilevskiy is quickly making himself a folk hero in Tampa, and why not? Sure, he allowed three goals in Game 5, but he won in overtime, and the only reason the Bolts were in a position to secure that win was because of two point blank saves late in the third on Phil Kessel and Kris Letang respectively.
The stats won't look astounding for Vasilevskiy with 31 saves on 34 shots, but the Lightning can thank him for winning the post pivotal game in this series.
Marc-Andre Fleury meanwhile, was nothing special in his first start since March 31. He stopped 21-of-25 shots, but he was beaten three other times by Lightning shots, only to get lucky thanks to the crossbar on all three occasions. He was incredibly weak up high and looked slow from our vantage point, and it wouldn't be shocking if the Pens called upon rookie Matt Murray once again to try to force a Game 7.
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You almost felt this coming from Nikita Kucherov. He hadn't scored a goal in this series prior to Game 5, but he had four assists in his last two games, and he was starting to get all around the net with the puck.
Now, Kuch has the taste of scoring once again after he put home the game-tying goal on two different occasions in Game 5.
Kucherov and Tyler Johnson have combined for 41 goals in the playoffs these last two seasons, and when these two men are on as they were in Game 5, Tampa Bay is an insanely dangerous team.
QUICK PICK
Lost in this mix of the Tampa Bay success was how badly Pittsburgh failed in Game 5. The men in black and gold were clearly the better ones on the ice for our money, yet Letang was -4, Sidney Crosby was nowhere to be found, and Evgeni Malkin missed a couple glorious opportunities in the first half of the game and was largely unheard from in the latter stages.
It only takes one moment to break a team like this one in the playoffs, and the Penguins have had so much forward momentum for the last four months that they might not be ready to respond from this shot from Tampa. Had Fleury looked better in net, we would've felt better about Game 6 for the Penguins. He didn't, and we aren't sure there are any answers left to be found.
If the Lightning are going to win this series, they're going to do it right here and right now in Game 6. We aren't totally sold they will, but we do think they've earned the right to be favored in this series, and that gives us some nice value to back them to close out the Eastern Conference title for the second straight year.
NHL Odds: Lightning 3, Penguins 1
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