1. IN THE NIK OF TIME
Tampa Bay held a 1-0 lead after the first round of the shootout, and had a chance to wrap up the victory after Jack Eichel was stoned by Andrei Vasilevskiy on Buffalo's second attempt.
Nikita Kucherov was up second for the Lightning. Before taking his turn, he went down to the other end of the ice and said something to Vasilevskiy.
Then he strode up to the puck and proceeded to unleash one of the greatest shootout moves any of us will ever see.
As he neared Buffalo's Robin Lehner with the puck on his forehand, he faked a deke to his backhand and let the puck slide toward goal. Lehner slid over to his right, thinking Kucherov was going to go backhand-forehand and try to sneak in a shot at the far post. Instead, the puck continued its uninterrupted path innocently toward goal, sliding five-hole beneath an incredulous Lehner.
After watching live, many speculated whether the shot was intentional or not.
It was.
"It definitely was on purpose," Lightning center Tyler Johnson said following the win. "He does it in practice all the time. I think a lot of people mess around doing that but you never thing in a NHL game. But that's Kuch. That's going to be a goal that's on YouTube forever. I can't wait to see it."
The move was both risky and brilliant. If it didn't work, Kucherov could have been lambasted for perceiving to hot dog it in a game where two crucial points hung in the balance.
When the move does work, however, which Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman said is quite often in practice, it looks spectacular. The cleverness of the play is that every goalie in the world is expecting the puck to go on the backhand, and Kucherov also hides the puck as it's traveling toward goal as he circles the blade of his stick around it.
"He brought the school yard to the big stage," Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. "That's a school yard move for sure. But, the bottom line is it crossed the goal line and that's what we needed: special player doing special things. I tell you, though, you better score on that."