Andrey SenchenkoSport correspondentAll materialsEmail the authorTampa Bay Lightning hockey players equalized the score in the first round of the playoffs of the National Hockey League with the Toronto Maple Leafs. The champions of the last two seasons were close to being knocked out of the Stanley Cup, but Nikita Kucherov and Andrey Vasilevsky turned the confrontation into a decisive, seventh match. not the most exciting battle among all the pairs of the draw, but the reality exceeded absolutely all expectations. The Maple Leafs took the lead three times and forced the champions of the last two seasons to come back. If in the first matches, “Tampa” looked sleepy, then later John Cooper's wards began to frankly panic. Before the sixth meeting «lightning» were in a critical situation. There was no room for error anymore: either a heroic rescue or a resounding failure in front of their fans in a game with a losing team that had not overcome the first round of the Stanley Cup for the past 18 years in a row. Maple Leafs expected that the owners of Amali -Arenas will start the match actively and aggressively in order to secure a comfortable advantage as soon as possible. Therefore, the coaching staff of Sheldon Keefe opted for indoor hockey: “Toronto” deliberately gave the initiative to “Tampa” and concentrated not so much on the rollback game, but on attentive and accurate actions in their zone, counting on counterattacks. And this approach paid off. “Lightning” though controlled the puck, but to create danger at the gates of Jack Campbell did not create from the word at all. To come up with something non-standard that would confuse the defenders of the guests, neither Nikita Kucherov, nor Steven Stamkos, nor anyone else succeeded.
