Lighting the Lamp: Our favorite goals in the Second Round of Stanley Cup playoffs

Welcome to Lighting the Lamp, a year-round NHL column. The best part of the Stanley Cup playoffs are the lamp lighters, and today we’re going to round up all the most exciting ones from Round 2.

We’re three days into the Conference Finals round of the 2018 NHL playoffs, after having bid farewell to the Boston Bruins and Pittsburgh Penguins in the Eastern Conference and the Nashville Predators and San Jose Sharks in the Western Conference.

The Third Round has already given us some unbelievable lamp-lighters, such as this wild goal by the Vegas Golden Knights’ “Wild Bill” Karlsson against the Winnipeg Jets and this snipe by the Washington Capitals’ Alex Ovechkin against the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The Caps are currently blanking the Jets 2-0 in their series, while the Jets are one up on the Golden Knights with another meeting set for tonight.

But before we get too ahead of ourselves in the Conference Finals, we would be remiss not to look back at the best goals of the semifinals. After all, those are the building blocks that got these teams where they are today.

And how ’bout those performances? Did you know that, to close the Second Round, Jets forwards Mark Scheifele and Blake Wheeler had accounted for 44.2 percent of their team’s goals (19 of 43)?

But it’s not just about the offense. Golden Knights goalie Marc-Andre Fleury recorded four shutouts through 10 games prior to the start of Round Three, approaching record-setting territory if he can record two more.

Let’s catalogue the best of the rest from the Second Round for posterity.

Best goals of Round 2

The Bruins’ David Pastrnak proved that he might be able to put together a batting average to rival his shooting percentage:

Remember when Pierre McGuire called Scheifele, the “best player who nobody knows”? Here was the high point of his second-round series against the Predators:

The Preds may have gotten knocked out, but we’ll remember this blast from P.K. Subban for months:

This J.T. Miller goal sealed the deal for the Bolts in Round 2:

It’s sad that we’re not going to get to see any more beautiful one-timers like this from David Krejci:

This, from the Penguins Jamie Oleksiak, appeared to have a honing device on it:

S-n-i-p-e by Kucherov:

Teamwork makes the dream work:

Favorite non-goal moments of Round 2

The cellys and saves are almost as fun as the lamp-lighters themselves — sometimes more. So when you score in a Game 7 — or prevent someone from scoring — you gotta harness that joy:

LEGENDS.

Hockey players, they’re just like us. Don’t we all impersonate the arena announcers?

Refs chirping is the best chirping:

What. A. Save this was by Connor Hellebuyck in Game 7:

Next: 20 hockey smiles that prove teeth are overrated

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