Tampa Bay's Game 2 loss was certainly not the fault of goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy.
The Lightning keeper - filling in for injured No. 1 Ben Bishop - was his team's best player Monday night. He stopped 38 of 41 shots and showed impressive poise in the first and third periods when Tampa Bay was outshot a combined 30-14 by the Pittsburgh Penguins. The Lightning finished with only 21 shots, and didn't register one during 40 seconds of overtime.
"You never want to lose your No. 1 guy in Bish," head coach Jon Cooper said, according to the Tampa Bay Times' Joe Smith. "But we've got 1A+ behind him. (Vasilevskiy) was outstanding tonight.
"He was probably the reason the game went into overtime in the first place."
Brian Boyle agreed.
"(Vasilevskiy) was awesome," the forward said, according to TampaBayLightning.com's Bryan Burns. "He gave us a chance. He was tremendous for us."
Anton Stralman enjoyed what he saw from the 'tender, too.
"He played like he's done nothing else but play in playoff games. It was fun to see."
