Will Experience Be the Key to Game 7 Between Seasoned Rangers, Young Lightning?

NEW YORK — Brian Boyle, like anyone who has participated in an abundance of postseason games in a short amount of time, said he could barely remember the details.

There was Adam Henrique’s goal in overtime of Game 6…and that’s pretty much it. The 2012 Stanley Cup playoffs were a mere three years ago, yet that’s the only specific Boyle can—or would like to—recall from that Eastern Conference Final knockout punch from the New Jersey Devils.

He was then with the New York Rangers, an inexperienced playoff team with a smattering of veterans learning about the highs and lows of the postseason.

Boyle entered the 2012 postseason with five games of experience. When he takes the ice as a member of the Tampa Bay Lightning for Game 7 of the conference finals on Friday night against his former team, it will be the 77th playoff game of his career.

“We thought we were right there,” Boyle said about that 2012 squad at a press conference on Thursday. “The margin for error we know is so small. It gets smaller and smaller. You see how different things change in the course of the game, and the momentum, when it's against you, things can slide pretty quickly. 

“We had a relatively young group of guys that hadn't been there. It was a lot of fun. We were just kind of along for the ride. This is a bit different just because, for me, I've been fortunate enough to be on some playoff teams after that, and I think there's guys in our group that have been on some playoff runs.” 

A lot has changed in Boyle’s life over the past three years—he married a year ago and became a dad last week—but he finds himself in a familiar situation, albeit now as the veteran surrounded by a young group about to face the biggest challenge of their careers. 

The Lightning are the underdog on Friday night, and it’s less about them being veritable newbies in this situation and more about the guys on the other bench boasting gobs of elimination-game and Game 7 success, most of it dating back to that 2012 run when Boyle was still wearing red, white and blue.

There are seven Rangers who received their indoctrinations into deep playoff runs in 2012 who will be in the lineup on Friday.

It’s easy to associate Game 7 greatness with Henrik Lundqvist—he is 6-0 in these decisive games since 2012 and has a career .966 save percentage in seven contests overall—but it’s just as easy to forget that 2012 was the first time Lundqvist got past the second round.

You could almost hear Lundqvist's heartbeat slowing as he was asked about another Game 7 on Thursday: "I just try to go out and do my job. You're definitely nervous, but it comes down to teamwork."

This too is old hat for the rest of the core—Ryan McDonagh, Dan Girardi, Marc Staal, Carl Hagelin, Chris Kreider and Derek Stepan were part of that burgeoning 2012 team that now has a reputation of being the toughest to kill in the NHL. The Rangers added Dan Boyle and Martin St. Louis in the past 18 months, and they are a combined 11-3 in Game 7s.

That doesn’t include Rick Nash and Derick Brassard, acquired in separate trades from the Columbus Blue Jackets before and during the 2013 season, who are both 4-0 in Game 7s.

The combined Game 7 record of the Rangers who will be in the lineup on Friday: 74-12.

The combined Game 7 record of Lightning who will be in the lineup on Friday: 42-8.

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Of those 42 wins, 12 are on the ledger of Brian Boyle, Anton Stralman and Ryan Callahan from when they were with the Rangers. Nineteen of the 42 wins are the result of the Lightning beating the Detroit Red Wings in Game 7 of the first round three weeks ago.

The 2012 Rangers rallied from a 3-2 deficit in the first round, needed seven games to emerge victorious in the second round, then fell just short in the conference finals.

The 2015 Lightning rallied from a 3-2 deficit in the first round, needed six games to emerge victorious in the second round and are now staring down the barrel of a game that will either propel to them to a Stanley Cup Final or serve as a learning tool for future use.

“There's going to be some nervous tension coming into this game, but I think our group over this playoff run has embraced every single moment,” Lightning captain Steven Stamkos said. “And every time we've had our backs against the wall, or every time the other team seems like they have momentum, we come out and we play well and we respond, and that's all we can do at this time is just respond the way we have.”

There's something to be said about learning to win by losing.

There is a litany of championship teams built on the foundation of failures in the preceding years. The 2009 Penguins lost in the Final the previous year, the 2010 Blackhawks lost in the 2009 conference finals, the 2011 Bruins blew a 3-0 series lead in the second round in 2010 and the 2013 Blackhawks were a product of those past runs.

This is the Rangers’ third appearance in the conference finals in four years, and the team is one year removed from a Stanley Cup Final berth that ended in one of the most tightly contested five-game series ever. 

This is the Lightning’s first conference finals appearance since 2011, and only Stamkos and Victor Hedman remain from that team.

Just like the 2012 Rangers had Brad Richards, Ruslan Fedotenko and Mike Rupp as the guys with playoff track records, the Lightning have all those ex-Rangers along with Matt Carle, Brenden Morrow, Braydon Coburn and Valtteri Filppula.

The 2015 Lightning have more experience than the 2012 Rangers, and maybe that’s enough to get them past the 2015 Rangers.

The difference in Game 7 will likely have to be those veterans, especially the ex-Rangers. Otherwise, this season can only serve as a launching point toward a future championship run for the Lightning.

Boyle was asked on Thursday about the Rangers’ recent Game 7 success, specifically the 5-0 record at Madison Square Garden.

Do you buy into that home-ice mystique for the Rangers?

After all, Boyle is part of that so-called mystique.

Well, Brian?

“Do you think I buy it? What am I doing here if I buy it? Why would I fly up from Florida if I bought it?

“They're going to have the crowd support,” Boyle said. “We're going to try to take it away from them as quick as we can, and hopefully it's going to be a really fun, memorable game.”

If Boyle is able to impart that attitude onto his young teammates, maybe the Lightning can arrive slightly ahead of schedule and create a memory he’ll cherish a little more fondly than the Henrique one.