I've Seen Enough. The Rest vs Rust Debate Is Officially Over
The Tampa Bay Lightning played their first game in what seemed like a month last night. Unfortunately for the 2x defending champs, the Florida Panthers were the biggest bunch of frauds in the league this year and were an unworthy opponent. The Bolts made light work out of them in 4 games and had plenty of time to rest up before the Eastern Conference Finals.
Rest up or rust up? The age old question. Folks have been embattled in the Rest vs Rust debate for millenniums. I believe it was the ancient Romans who first began to ponder on this dilemma when going to battle with Carthage. And last night we finally got our definitive answer.
The last game the Lightning played was on May 23. The last game the Ranger played was on Monday night. And just over a minute into last night's affair…
Andrei Vasilevskiy let up 3 goals in the entire 4-game series against Florida. You're trying to tell me that he just let up 6 last night because the Rangers are that much better than the Panthers? Get real. Buddy hasn't seen a shot in over a week. He was out getting hammered drunk over Memorial Day Weekend, still a little groggy last night, and just needs to settle back in to playing some playoff hockey again.
Brutal news for the Rangers is that they wasted all their goals in game 1. Same shit happened to the Leafs in the first round. They won game 1 against Tampa 5-0. They could have been smart and just held on to a comfortable 3-0 win, but they decided to get cocky and go for the 5. Then when they really need those extra goals, they game up with just 1 in game 7. The Rangers could have been smart and just held on to that 4-2 lead they took into the 2nd intermission with them. Instead, Panarin scores 30 seconds into the 3rd period.
There are only so many shots you are going to get past Andrei Vasilevskiy in a 7-game series. I can't tell you how reckless it is to waste those precious goals in a game that is already locked up. Especially when Vasilevskiy now knows exactly what he needs to fix for the rest of the series.
The moment he locks that up, then what are those idiots going to do?
At the end of the day, rust kicked the everliving shit out of rest last night. The debate is over for good. But getting shelled by a half dozen goals is a natural rust remover. Bolts in 5.