The Tampa Bay Lightning had a lot on the line today. Coming into today’s matinee game, the Lightning led the New Jersey Devils 3-1 in the Opening Round of the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs. This means a victory over the Devils tonight, in front of their hometown crowd, would mean the Bolts advance to the next round.
As the old saying goes, “desperate times call for desperate measures.” Pushed to the brink of elimination, desperate is the perfect term to describe the mindset of the New Jersey Devils. If they had any hopes of salvaging their postseason aspirations, they would have to leave everything out on the Amalie Arena ice.