All-Time Great Lundqvist Would Love to Complete Cup Story
By Charles Jay
In the Stanley Cup betting odds that have been posted on Rangers vs Lightning Game 7, the Rangers are naturally favored at home to lock up Game 7 and move onto the final step:
New York Rangers -145
Tampa Bay Lightning +125
Over 5 goals -110
Under 5 goals -110
It has unquestionably been a tough road back for the New York Rangers, who were disappointed so badly as they made a trip to the Stanley Cup finals last season only to get beaten in five games by the Los Angeles Kings, suffering through three overtime defeats along the way. Now the Rangers appear to be on the positive end of the whole “cardiac kid” scenario and they have the opportunity to send their fans into near-hysteria with a victory on Friday night against the Tampa Bay Lightning. It is Game 7 of the Eastern Conference finals, and the winner will go on to play for the Cup. Stanley Cup playoff betting action continues long past the opening face-off, as Vietbet customers can make wagers on numbers that are moving about as fast as the puck, through the facilities of Live Betting Extra.
To say the Rangers stunned many in the hockey world would be an understatement. Certainly there were a healthy number of people who thought they could win a game on the road and force this decisive seventh meeting, because after all, New York had the best road record in the NHL this season. But few anticipated the carnage the Blueshirts would create at the Amalie Arena. Let’s put it this way – there were six minutes left in the game when Tampa Bay pulled its goaltender. And that goaltender, Ben Bishop, went through all kinds of abuse, giving up five goals, with his solid 2-0 shutout at Madison Square Garden on Sunday night a distant memory.
Now Bishop has to come back after his confidence was unmistakably shaken and deliver for this Lightning squad that has a lot of young players, especially compared with the more veteran Ranger contingent.
One would have to consider the Rangers to be one of the more mentally-tough squads in recent memory. Yes, they had the best record in the league this season, but they looked like a dead dogs against the Washington Capitals, as they went down three games to one in the series, but they rally back, winning two overtime games at home and going to the Verizon Center to pick up the critical Game 6 victory. That got them to this conference final, and they knew they had their work cut out for them against a Tampa Bay club that swept them in all three meetings during the regular season.
But when a team can win 28 games on the road, they absolutely cannot be counted out under any scenario, and Vietbet customers know that all too well. So in the 7-3 victory, in which New York silenced the 19,000-plus fans (or more accurately, the vast majority of them, because New York definitely had some snowbirds in the audience), they may have chipped away at the Tampa Bay psyche. Yes, the Lightning are a lightning-fast team. But sometimes there is no substitute for experience at the goaltender position, and Henrik Lundqvist, known as the “King,” is someone who has delivered time and time again. He has now been through 110 playoff starts, but the one thing he is missing is a Stanley Cup championship. This future Hall of Famer may wind up delivering the feel-good subtext of the year if he were to bring the Rangers their first title in 21 years, and second in the last 75.
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