Avalanche dominate Lightning in Game 2 rout

The Tampa Bay Lightning were confident they would have a better start in Game 2 of the Stanley Cup Final.

That confidence, it turns out, was unfounded.

The Colorado Avalanche roared out of the gate for a second straight game on their way to a 7-0 win to take a commanding 2-0 series lead as it shifts back to Tampa Bay on Monday night. This is just the second time the Lightning have lost consecutive playoff games since 2020, and these two games have probably been the worst ones they’ve played during that stretch.

Tampa Bay simply has had no answers for anything Colorado has done over the first two games. They can not match their speed, they can not slow down their forecheck, they can not establish any offensive zone time, and they have been unable to take advantage of the goaltending matchup that should benefit them.

The Avalanche again jumped out to a 2-0 lead in the first 10 minutes on goals from Valeri Nichushkin and Josh Manson, and then added another when Andre Burakovsky found the back of the net for the second game in a row. Colorado recorded 15 of the game’s first 16 shot attempts and by the end of the first period had a commanding 24-10 attempts lead and an 11-5 shots on goal edge.

Colorado finished the game with a decisive edge in every major category offensively.

Even more than the score and the stats, the Avalanche just looked better. Even when they were not scoring goals they were creating golden scoring opportunities and making Andrei Vasilevskiy make more big saves than he probably wanted to be making in a game against that sort of offense.

What makes this Colorado onslaught so impressive so far is that it is not necessarily the superstars providing the goals. They have been great, sure, but the secondary