Tampa Bay Lightning Defeat The Detroit Red Wings

1. 72. 3. 23. Final

If the season were to end right now, the Tampa Bay Lightning would face the Detroit Red Wings in the playoffs. Should that turn into reality, we saw a heck of a preview tonight as the Lightning beat the Wings 3 to 1 to extend their lead over Detroit to eight points in the Atlantic Division. For Tampa, they have now beaten Detroit in all three games played between the teams this season.

I really do not have any preference as to who the Tampa Bay Lightning are matched up with next month in the playoffs.

After tonight’s victory, the Lightning is now 15-6-2 against the eight teams in the East that are currently in the playoff hunt.

In fact, they are now undefeated against three of the top Eastern Conference teams in the Montreal Canadiens, New York Rangers and Detroit Red Wings.

Tonight, the Red Wings were playing the second game of a back to back. From the way they played in the first two periods of the game, you could not tell they played last night in Sunrise, losing to Florida by the same 3 to 1 score.

Through one period, the game was scoreless. Both Ben Bishop and Jimmy Howard made some significant saves in the first to keep their opponents off the scoreboard. After the first period, Detroit had the advantage in shots on goal 13 to 11.

At the start of the second period, the Lightning seemed to take control of the game. At 1:22 of the middle frame, Victor Hedman blasted a shot that Howard caught with his left pad. The bouncing rebound landed right on the stick of Anton Stralman who put it past the recovering Detroit goalie to give the Lightning a one goal lead.

Hedman was called for a trip at 6:30 of the second but it was the kind of penalty that a player has to take. Newly acquired Erik Cole was breaking in all alone on Bishop when the 6 foot 6 inch Hedman laid himself out and with the tip of his stick, Hedman managed to separate Cole from the puck. When Cole lost his footing and landed on top of Hedman, the ref had no choice but to whistle the infraction.

Detroit scored a little less than 30 seconds into the power play when Bishop stopped a shot from the blue line by Marek Zidlicky. Erik Cole began to slap his stick on Bishop’s pads and as a scrum started on top of Bishop, Tomas Tatar banged in the puck as it slid out from under Bishop. That goal tied the game at one.

At the start of the final period, the back to back games were evident on the visiting team. From the opening puck drop in the third, the Bolts had the Wings retreating in their zone. Tampa dominated the play to the point where the first few minutes and line changes, Detroit could not managed any time in the Lightning zone.

About halfway through the period, Jonathan Drouin got to a loose puck and charged towards Detroit’s zone. As he neared the faceoff dot, he slid toward the center of the ice, dropping a blind pass to Victor Hedman. Hedman had to reach to get the puck and passed it to a rushing Alex Killorn who wristed a shot past a screened out Howard for the 2 to 1 lead.

The Red Wings battled back and kept the pressure on the home team, not giving up another goal and working the puck into the Lightning’s zone. With a little over two minutes left in regulation, the Wings pulled their goalie for the extra attacker. While they had a couple good looks, Bishop was on lockdown mode.

With about 30 seconds left, Brian Boyle lifted a puck towards Detroit’s empty net and a race ensued between Niklas Kronwall and Steven Stamkos.

Kronwall had the head start but the speed of Stamkos was evident as Kronwall attempting to keep his body between the puck and the Tampa captain failed miserably as he turned left, Stamkos turned right and flicked in the final goal into the empty net.

Great win for the team as they welcomed back Ondrej Palat who was hurt last week in Montreal. Next up is the big, bad Bruins from Boston on Sunday at 5:00 p.m.

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