Andrey SenchenkoSport correspondentAll materialsEmail to the authorNikita Kucherov returned the Tampa Bay Lightning to the battle for a ticket to the Stanley Cup final. The Russian scorer scored three points, which brought the “lightning” the most important victory in the series against the “New York Rangers”. After the second defeat from the “Rangers”, the Tampa hockey players were in an unenviable position. In the rich history of the NHL, a 2-0 series streak has formed a trend in which the team that wins the first two games, in most cases (namely, 86.5%), ended up advancing to the next round. This was especially true of the conference finals. History remembers only seven cases when the teams bounced back from 0-2 and got into the Stanley Cup Finals (twice each «Detroit» and «Chicago», one more time «Toronto», «Islanders» and «Pittsburgh»). With regard to “Tampa”, this statistic is the saddest. Before the current season, “Lightning” got into a similar situation five times. It was possible to make a comeback from 0-2 and eventually win the series only once — in 2003 in the confrontation with Washington (4-2) in the 1/8 finals of the Stanley Cup. Naturally, this state of affairs did not suit John Cooper's team in any way, because the third Stanley Cup in a row moved too far away. And, it seems, this «perspective» outraged Nikita Kucherov most of all.
