Stanley Cup Finals Blog: Nicholas Paul
Tampa Bay Lightning forward Nicholas Paul will maintain its own blog throughout the 2022 Stanley Cup Final against the Colorado Avalanche. He will tune in regularly with backstage access.
In the third entry, Paul talks about the Lightning’s 7-0 loss at the Avalanche in Game 2 on Saturday, how the team dropped the goaltender Andrei Vasilevsky and getting back to Tampa for Game 3 on Monday (8 p.m. ET; ABC, ESPN+, CBC, SN, TVAS) is a bonus.
I think right now we definitely have to learn from the loss. We can’t pretend nothing happened, you know. It wasn’t a good enough effort there, and like I told the media, we kind of let ‘Vasy’ dry out, and it’s not fair to him. You know, he was a pillar for us.
I think that tomorrow we find ourselves in a group, we start to have confidence, we get back on the page. We’re just going back to a game plan, performing, struggling, being that team that got us here. You know, downstairs two, obviously you don’t want to be there, but we’ve been here before. This team knows how to overcome adversity, so we will be ready.
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As for this match against match 1, I mean, a loss is a loss. I think today our competition was not there, losing little battles here and there. Not even having momentum, you saw the total shots on goal (30-16), so today’s probably hurts a little more.
We’re heading back to Tampa tomorrow and I think the most important thing is to hydrate tonight. Enjoy your meal. Sleep well. Breakfast tomorrow. If you need treatment, get treatment. Everything you need to do. Go on the flight. Do the routine you have there and come back. See your family. Regroup, regenerate and be ready.
Just being home is certainly enjoyable. And that’s the ice we train on all year and play a bunch of games, so the house is definitely huge. Our fans are huge. We can take advantage of that, but at the same time we can’t just rely on being home and hoping to win. It’s a very good team. We have to go out and we have to really dig our feet in and come together as a group, win our battles, put pucks on the net, do whatever we have to do. Just have winning habits, basically.”
