NEW YORK — After nine days off and in their Eastern Conference final opener, the Lightning weren’t the same team that swept the Florida Panthers.
Tampa Bay was definitely rusty Wednesday night following the long layoff. The Lightning were flat-footed, slow and sloppy.
The end result was one of their worst defeats of the playoffs, a 6-2 loss to the Rangers at Madison Square Garden.
The six goals were the most the Lightning have allowed this postseason and tied the most Andrei Vasilevskiy has allowed in a playoff game.
Through two periods, the Lightning had allowed more goals to the Rangers than they had in their entire four-game sweep of the Presidents’ Trophy-winning Panthers.
The biggest sign of rust was how the Lightning were suddenly lost defensively. The key to their postseason win streak was the way they protected their own net. On Wednesday night, they let the Rangers get in too many spots for prime scoring attempts on Vasilevskiy.
Tampa Bay looked more like the team that struggled in the postseason opener in Toronto than the one that won six straight games.
From the beginning, the Lightning struggled to defend their own end, and they spent the night chasing the game because of it.
Just 72 seconds into the first period, defenseman Zach Bogosian committed to Mika Zibanejad on a 2-on-1 rush and was unable to cut off the passing lane, leaving Chris Kreider wide open for a goal.
The Lightning had answers for New York’s first two scores. Steven Stamkos followed Kreider’s goal and Ondrej Palat matched Frank Vatrano’s score.
Then the Rangers piled on with four unanswered goals, two by forward Filip Chytil in the second period.
On Chytil’s first goal, the Lightning overpursued Kaapo Kakko behind the net, and Kakko found Chytil for a wrister in front of the net. Chytil then beat Vasilevskiy with a one-timer from the right circle after a cross-slot pass from K’Andre Miller.
