For the fifth time in franchise history, the Tampa Bay Lightning jumped out to a 3-0 lead in a playoff series. In the previous four opportunities the Lightning won the series. If they can pull it off again, it’s another date with the Eastern Conference/Semi-Finals, which would mark the sixth time in the last nine seasons.
It seems a foregone conclusion that they are going to advance past the Florida Panthers, but as Coach Cooper likes to remind everyone, they really haven’t done anything until they’ve won the fourth game of the series. It might be tempting for some, on a back-to-back and with a 3-0 series lead, for the Lightning to give Andrei Vasilevskiy a break and start Brian Elliott.