TAMPA, Fla. _ The Tampa Bay Lightning are built to win. The Devils arrived to the party ahead of schedule. They'll be back, but they weren't ready for a deep run in the Stanley Cup Playoffs just yet.
The Devils were eliminated from the postseason with a 3-1 loss on Saturday afternoon at Amalie Arena. They pulled the goalie late and Patrick Maroon managed to cut the lead in half with three minutes left to play but they couldn't tie it up.
Ryan Callahan scored an empty-net goal with a one second and change left on the clock to push the game out of reach.
The regular-season champions of the Eastern Conference played like champions in five games of the best-of-seven quarterfinal series, winning 4-1 and eliminating the Devils in Game 5.
With the Devils banged up and playing without their best defenseman in Sami Vatanen and one of their best defensive forwards in Stefan Noesen, Cory Schneider needed to steal a game for New Jersey. He nearly did.
Mikhail Sergachev and Nikita Kucherov scored for Tampa Bay. Sergachev's tally came 8:07 into play, blast from the point rocketed through traffic. Kucherov scored with 7:33 left to play.
Schneider was stellar, stopping 35 of 37 shots he faced, including a few while on his back in the first period. The goalie's performance was the turning point for New Jersey in the series. His performance helped spur them to a Game 3 win and kept the Devils within striking distance in 4 and 5.
He was the Devils' best penalty killer, and they spent an awful lot of time on the kill.
The Devils spent eight minutes killing off penalties in the second period. They took a fifth penalty on a bad line change right before time expired to put them a man down to start the third. They killed off all five, a remarkable feat when you consider how deadly the Lightning's power play is. It's a key strength of a team that has many.
But Tampa's biggest strength in this series is their overall depth. They have three lines and the ability to dominate the matchups. They were able to roll four lines and the Devils' lack of depth and secondary scoring ultimately was exposed. In keeping with the theme of this series, the Devils spent too much time playing in their own end and weren't able to generate any offense. The shot totals were misleading. Even when the Devils outshot the Lightning, the scores ended up lopsided in favor of Tampa.
The Lightning had more quality chances than the Devils. At 13:41 in the third period, Marcus Johansson had to sweep a puck off the crease and send it down the ice. Schneider made a great stop on a partial breakaway by Kucherov a few minutes later.
The Devils then had two wide-open looks on a third-period power play _ their only power play of the game _ but couldn't capitalize.
Schneider had J.T. Miller screening him when Kucherov launched a low shot from the point to make it 2-0.
