Blues Sweep Season Series Against Tampa Bay Lightning

The brutal February schedule continued tonight at Amalie Arena as the Tampa Bay Lightning faced the St. Louis Blues.

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Word from the Blues camp was that Coach Ken Hitchcock had the Blues practice in a break neck speed the last couple of days in preparation for this game. The strategy worked. St. Louis won this game over the Lightning playbook by a score of 6 to 3. Problem was that the game wasn’t even THAT close.

Less than two minutes into the game, T.J. Oshie scored off a pass from Alexander Steen to give St. Louis a fast 1 – 0 lead. Less than three minutes later, Steen made another beautiful two line feed to a streaking Dmitrij Jaskin who beat Ben Bishop for a quick 2 – 0 lead.

The first period ended with that same score and the Blues enjoying a 17 to 6 shellacking over the Lightning in shots on goal.

The first five minutes of the second period saw a little life in the Lightning players. They outshot the visitors 6 to 2 in that span and were taking it to the Blues. When Tyler Johnson scored on a power play to make it a 2 -1 game, a little over eight minutes into the middle frame, there was a feeling that we would see a real nail biter here. It was not to be.

In a span of 3:08 towards the end of the 2nd period, the Blues scored three goals. That made it 5 to 1 St. Louis and the Bolts were lucky to connect on a pass let alone score a goal.

The Blues made the Lightning look slow, timid and disoriented. You can count on one hand the number of games the Bolts have played this badly, especially at home.

With a little more than two minutes left in the second period, Brett Connolly scored to make it 5 – 2. St. Louis was clearly outplaying the host team tonight. Getting another 17 shots on goal, St. Louis had a 34 to 20 advantage heading into the final period. They also chased Bishop at that point as Andrei Vasilevskiy started the third period in net for the Lightning.

Steven Stamkos scored a goal off an Alex Killorn pass to cut the St. Louis lead to 5 to 3. Thirteen minutes remained in the game; at least the Lightning had a chance. Unfortunately, after that goal the visiting team put the clamps down on the Lightning the rest of the way.

The Blues scored an empty netter with about a minute to go that accounted for the final 6 to 3 score. It was the worst home loss of the season for the Lightning who now begin a five game road trip out west.

You can blame the schedule makers. You can point to the injuries. Coach Jon Cooper said that this month will begin to separate the pretenders from the contenders. One loss doesn’t define the Lightning any more than one victory does. With five straight road games, it is important that the Lightning set a tone in every game the second the puck drops.

They had glimpses of the team we have seen most of the season tonight in the third period. They need to play a full game with that level of energy. They have a few days to put this loss behind them as their next game is Sunday night in San Jose. Puck drops at 8:00 p.m.

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