Tampa Bay Lightning fans were treated to more than a few sparkplug moments in last night’s 4-1 home win over the Rangers.
There was the sultry Zach Bogosian drive ending in a classic Pat Maroon chip in to give Tampa Bay its first goal.
There was Nikita Kucherov streaking down the ice to beat Igor Shesterkin 5-hole for the winning score.
There was Ondrej Palat steering the wheel of it all, staying strong on the puck, doing the little things and setting up Kuch on the aforementioned goal.
There was Andrei Vasilevskiy barely missing another playoff shutout, bested only by a 6-on-4 goal in the final minutes of the game.
But when you’re a devout Bolts fan—three rounds into your third consecutive Stanley Cup run, playoff beard unruly, surviving on adrenaline and cough drops—sometimes you need a little something to find that extra drop of gas in the tank. A moment to feel seen, appreciated, acknowledged that your long nights pillaging $15 Mich Ultras and air-frying your vocal cords aren’t going unnoticed.
15 games in, Brandon Hagel delivered that moment.
Hockey fights are less frequent come playoff time. They’re mostly considered reckless and unwise—used sparingly in favor of keeping your lines intact.
But when New York’s Frank Vatrano came catcalling, unlikely combatant Hagel responded, “Say less.”
Hagel took the melee in stride, eating a sturdy haymaker from Vatrano and retaliating with a few fisticuffs of his own. It was the rare, spirited fracas hockey fans admire, but are hard-pressed to see this time of year. Even ESPN’s Sean McDonough let out an unsolicited “whoa” as things escalated. (Generally speaking, if an experienced play-by-play caller is taken aback by a hockey fight, it was probably a good scrap.)
After the dust settled, Hagel gave his best “Are you not entertained?” Raising one hand and playing to an electrified Amalie crowd as he skated to the box. If you think his seasoned, Stanley Cup-veteran teammates were put off by such malarkey, you’d be mistaken.
“It was great,” Steven Stamkos said after the game. “You don’t see a lot of fights come playoff time, but Hages is a competitor. He’s not going to back down. That was big…It certainly gave the bench some energy and it got the crowd fired up. It’s never a bad thing when you have those two going for you and I think we scored when he was in the box too, if I can remember correctly, so it was a good swing for our group.”
Pat Maroon, a long-toothed scrapper in his own right, echoed Stamkos.
“They had a good tilt. They’re just swinging away. They’re swinging for the fences. Those are fun fights to watch…It gets the boys going and he had a little hype for the fans there at the end.”
Bolts fans know better than most that at the end of a deep playoff run—especially ones that end in a Stanley Cup hoist—players are remembered for the moments that steal their hearts. Sometimes they’re straightforward: Palat’s game-winner, Vasy’s 49 saves. And sometimes they’re a little more screwy: Kucherov’s #NumberOneBullshit, Yanni Gourde’s belly slide.
On Tuesday night, it felt like Hagel found his in a less-than-subtle hat tip to Lightning loyalists: We’re not done yet.