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Tampa Bay Lightning Fall Hard Against the Toronto Maple Leafs

By Tasha St. Pierre

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23. Final. 5. 116. 2

Despite a surge in the third period, the Tampa Bay Lightning would fall to the Toronto Maple Leafs tonight at the Air Canada Centre.

The Tampa Bay Lightning came into this game looking to right their course and get back on track when they took the ice at the Air Canada Centre tonight. Unfortunately, the Toronto Maple Leafs had something to say about this.

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Despite a surge late in the third period, a string of badly-placed turnovers and quite a few missteps along the way, the Tampa Bay Lightning would fall to the Toronto Maple Leafs by the score of 5-2.

The Tampa Bay Lightning seemed to come out to a good start, but that was kind of short lived.

Just under a minute and a half into the first period the Maple Leafs would strike first blood with a goal from Maple Leafs right wing David Clarkson. The assists on the goal would go to center Daniel Winnik and defenseman Roman Polak.

The first period resulted in quite a bit of back and forth between these two teams. Just about the halfway point in the period, and there were only three shots on goal apiece. That’s right…3.

Unfortunately, the first period wouldn’t get much more exciting than this. We’re not quite sure what it is, but the Lightning seemed to be missing their usual spark in the opening frame.

One of the areas the Lightning seemed to be destroyed in during the first twenty minutes is the Faceoff Circle. The Lightning were outplayed 15-5 in the Faceoff Circle. Yes…15-5. This is highly irregular for a team like the Lightning who has players like Valtteri Filppula and Tyler Johnson who are so strong on the Faceoff.

Filppula has a Faceoff Percentage of 53.8% while Tyler Johnson has a 50.2%. Just ahead of Johnson is Brian Boyle with a FO% of 50.6%.

On the bright side, the Bolts would not head into the intermission at a deficit. In the final minutes of the first period, Alex Killorn would get the Lightning on the board with a short-handed goal.

As the buzzer sounded and the players headed off the ice and to the locker rooms, the fans hoped that the Killorn shorty was the spark that the Lightning needed to get back into this game and play what we have come to know as Lightning Hockey.

Unfortunately, the second period started out much the same way the first period did. After Lightning defenseman Matt Carle had a misstep in the defensive zone, Maple Leafs right wing Richard Panik was able to capitalize and give the Leafs a 2-1 lead early in the second period.

I know this is going to come off as bitter, but I think it’s worth mentioning that Panik’s goal in the second period has officially given Panik more goals in the 19 games he’s played this season than all 50 that he played with the Lightning last season. This is where we throw our hands in the air and ask where was that last season?

Before the halfway point in the period, Lightning center Vladislav Namestnikov had a great opportunity on a breakaway, but he just couldn’t find the net.

The bad news is, the intermission really didn’t seem to help the Bolts as much as we would have hoped. In fact, if anything is did more harm than good.

The second period would see not one, not two, but three – yes, three – unanswered goals from the Toronto Maple Leafs. After the Panik goal earlier in the period, James van Riemsdyk would find the net twice in a row with goals at 12:31 and 15:15 in the period.

We don’t know about you, but we seem to be having a hard time wrapping our heads around this one. The defense has played substantially better this season than we have in many seasons past, yet in the past few games it seems as if the defense has thrown their hands in the air and said “What did we do?”

I find it hard to believe that a team who has had such good chemistry this season could be thrown off so much by missing a defenseman like Victor Hedman. Granted, he is one of the strongest two-way players on the Lightning defense, but as we have said many times before when it came to goaltenders, you can’t rely on one guy to do all the work.

There was one scary moment in the period. Maple Leafs captain Dion Phaneuf wound up and took a full-steam shot which just happened to nail Ondrej Palat right in between his shoulder blades. It was clear to see that he was in pain after the hit, but he was able to skate off the ice without assistance.

Waiting for him on the Lightning bench was the Lightning’s Head Athletic Trainer Tom Mulligan. The good news is, Palat would soon be back in the game. Palat is certainly a tough guy, but we have to admit that we don’t want to see the bruise he is going to have tomorrow morning.

During the second, the Bolts did seem to improve a bit in terms of Shots on Goal, but they unfortunately continued to get annihilated in the Faceoff Circle. The Bolts would outshoot the Leafs 13-8 in the 2nd to give them a 21-17 lead for the game, but would be outplayed 30-16 overall in the Faceoff Circle.

The bad news is, the third period started off just the same as the previous two have. Well…minus the early goals from the Maple Leafs.

In the first half of the period, there was not a whole lot of excitement. The Lightning would get two chances with a man advantage, but they were simply unable to pull the trigger on either one of them.

The Bolts have managed to get back on par in regards to Shots on Goal; however, this brings my old theory of mine bubbling back to the top once again; quality over quantity. The Bolts may have had 22 legitimate Shots on Goal in the first twelve minutes of the third period, yet only one of them found the net.

At the same time, Toronto has 20 Shots on Goal, yet four of them found the back of the net. This means that for every five shots they take…they score.

While we will concede that not every shot is a masterpiece, at some point and time you have to stop and contemplate what is not working and well…stop doing it.

This is where we point the stick at Matt Carle, who seemed to be involved in a number of the Maple Leafs’ goals tonight. Alongside Carle is defenseman Anton Stralman, who is also at a minus-2 rating tonight.

This is not to say that either one of them are bad defensemen, because let’s face it, Stralman has been pretty on-point this season, but there is definitely some sort of breakdown here that needs to be addressed in practice.

With just about five minutes left in the game, the Lightning elected to pull goaltender Ben Bishop in order to get an extra man on the ice. While this normally makes me incredibly nervous, the Tampa Bay Lightning were able to make this work.

Steven Stamkos would get his hands on a rebound in front of Maple Leafs goaltender Jonathan Bernier and make its way into the back of the net to give the Lightning a step in the right direction.

While it did serve to give us a glimmer of hope in the final minutes of the game, the spark that the Bolts seemed to find leaves quite a few of us disappointed. This leaves us all standing there wondering “Where the heck was this during the other 55 minutes of the game?”

Unfortunately, Stamkos’ goal would be the final one of the night for the Lightning. The final nail in the coffin would come as the clock wound down as Leafs center Tyler Bozak sunk an empty net goal. The Tampa Bay Lightning would fall victim to a hungry Toronto Maple Leafs team by the score of 5-2.

The loss surely doesn’t fall squarely on the shoulders of Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop, but we must point out that this is a rather odd game for him. Usually Bishop’s upper limit is 2 goals per game, and letting in 4 is a little much for him.

As we said before, Bishop is not the sole player responsible for the loss against the Maple Leafs. There were plenty of players who contributed. We only make note because of the pure oddity of the amount of goals allowed.

While this is certainly not the worst game the team has played this season, we have certainly seen better from the team. One of the biggest things that made the difference tonight for the Leafs is their dominance in the Faceoff Circle.

When the final buzzer sounded, the Leafs had outplayed the Bolts 44-24 in the Faceoff Circle. If you want to be technical about it, this is what opened the door for the empty netter in the final seconds of the game. This is normally a strong point for the Bolts, but they just could not seem to get it together tonight.

This is one of those nights when we are going to have to take the loss like big boys and girls, pull our laces up tight, and get ready for the next game. We can assure you that the Minnesota Wild is not going to hold back on us, and we are going to have to be ready if the Bolts want to get back to their winning ways in front of the hometown crowd.

What do you think the Lightning need to work on if they hope to come home to the Amalie Arena and get back to their winning ways? Who do you think stands the chance of making the biggest difference on Saturday night? Let us know what you think in the comments below.

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