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Tampa Bay Lightning coach Jon Cooper heard the whispers that suggested Ben Bishop had gone as far as he was meant to travel along the Stanley Cup trail, and Cooper matter-of-factly pointed out that no team gets to the conference finals without a goalie who is capable of winning a third, and perhaps, a fourth playoff series.

Bishop had just blanked the New York Rangers after allowing 10 goals in the previous two games, so Cooper had his proof, and he might have added that Bishop's two best playoff performances have been the series-clinching games against Detroit and Montreal.

To predict that Bishop would add Game 6 against the Rangers to that list wouldn't fit Cooper's style, but the coach is quite right to tell fans and pundits alike to stop looking for reasons his or any of the other three teams still active are bound to lose.

As it happened, Steven Stamkos set up Tampa Bay's winning goal and scored the second one in last night's 2-0 victory, and his dry spell earlier in the playoffs was another reason that was supposed to limit the Lightning's playoff run.

Two teams are about to win their way to the Stanley Cup final; thumbs up to them. They will deserve it. They will not advance because of glaring weaknesses in the teams they beat.

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The Chicago Blackhawks and Anaheim Ducks have as many as three games left to decide their series, and they're liable to add the equivalent of one or two more the way they like to play overtime. The long games that take fans deep into the night or early morning are very popular with some who would call themselves true fans of hockey, but they also have their detractors who think enough is enough when a deadlocked game starts to close eyelids.

How long is too long? My colleague Michael Farber is ready to see a shootout if two overtime periods aren't enough to declare a winner. I go in a different direction. I'll take as many overtimes as necessary, but I want all of them to be played with four skaters on each side, not five. No one objects when it's that way in regular-season overtime, and it is that way to encourage wide-open play and a winning goal. Why not do the same in the playoffs?

Thumbs up to a solution to ridiculously-long games that shouldn't offend anyone.

I think that's it.