When the Rangers’ string of gripping one-goal victories finally ran out, the main architect was Tyler Johnson. His hat trick on Monday night helped the Tampa Lightning to a 6-2 victory and evened the Eastern Conference finals at one game each.
A playoff hat trick is not that unusual: Johnson’s was the 51st in this century, according to statistics at hockey-reference.com, and the third in these playoffs, after Vladimir Tarasenko for the Blues against the Wild and Filip Forsberg for the Predators against the Blackhawks.
But what was especially uncommon was that Johnson scored one of his goals short-handed, one on a power play and one at even strength.