The Tampa Bay Lightning played a decent game, but when the final buzzer sounded, the Lightning would fall 4-2 to the Vancouver Canucks in the season finale.
The Tampa Bay Lightning finally found the chemistry needed in order to pull themselves out of their recent rut and get back on track with their 6-3 victory over the Calgary Flames. Tonight, the Lightning were faced with an even tougher challenge.
Now that the Lightning have found a way to win, they are faced with the challenge of finding a way to continue their winning ways and really get back into the bigger picture in the Atlantic Division. Their first test was tonight at the Rogers Arena against the Vancouver Canucks.
The first meeting of the season between these two teams didn’t exactly end well for the Tampa Bay Lightning. In fact, the Bolts were trounced 5-1 by the Canucks at the Amalie Arena in Tampa on December 8th. Unfortunately, the outcome wouldn’t be much different tonight in Vancouver.
Tampa Bay Lightning
The first period didn’t exactly get off to the start the Tampa Bay Lightning would’ve wanted. Just over two minutes into the game and the Canucks would find themselves with a chance on the Power Play as Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman was sent to the penalty box for two minutes for Delay of Game.
This would open the door for Canucks defenseman Ben Hutton to capitalize on the opportunity and put the puck in the back of the net. Thankfully, Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper and the Lightning’s video playback team were able to catch something the referees seemed to have missed.
As you can imagine, Cooper challenged the play claiming it was offside. Thankfully for the Lightning, the referees agreed with Cooper’s objection and the Lightning kept their timeout while the Canucks goal was erased for the board. The Bolts got away with one, but they would have to work hard to prevent another.
Of course, being outshot in the first five minutes of the game is not the way a team who wants to build a winning streak plays. Thankfully, as the period forged on, the Lightning would quickly rectify this situation.
Just four minutes after the Canucks had their goal snatched out from under them, the Lightning would make a move of their own. The Bolts were playing the puck in the Canucks defensive zone when Lightning forward Valtteri Filppula would get his stick on the puck.
The Canucks defense was coming down hard on Filppula as it looked like he was about to take the shot. Unfortunately for the Canucks, what they didn’t see was a waiting Victor Hedman in place in front of the net. Filppula passed the puck off to Hedman and Hedman followed through with a goal on Canucks netminder Ryan Miller to open the score for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
When the buzzer would sound to end the first period of play, the Lightning would continue to lead the Canucks 1-0. After a slow start to the game, the Bolts would come back to outshoot the Canucks 11-8 in the first 20 minutes. The Lightning would need to keep the pressure on the Canucks if they wanted to have the same success heading into the second period.
The bad news is, the Lightning couldn’t seem to manage this in the opening minutes of the second period. Just 1:37 into the second period, Lightning defenseman Slater Koekkoek would lose control of the puck and ended up turning the puck over to Canucks forward Markus Granlund.
Granlund would quickly pass the puck out in front of the net to the waiting stick of forward Brandon Sutter who would beat Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy on the play and tie things up for the Canucks.
Unfortunately, the pressure continued to mount for the Lightning as the second period forged on. Just past the halfway point in the second period, the Canucks would make their move to take control of the game.
Lightning forward Vladislav Namestnikov would lose his man, which opened the door for Canucks defenseman Luca Sbisa to beat Vasilevskiy and put the puck in the back of the net and snatch the lead right out of the hands of the Tampa Bay Lightning.
When the buzzer would sound to end the period, the Lightning would trail the Canucks 2-1. Unfortunately, this seems to be a pattern developing for the Bolts. The second period has been notoriously bad for the Bolts over the last couple of seasons, which has caused chaos where the Lightning should have consistency.
The Lightning and Canucks would find themselves tied in shots on goal in the second period for a two-period total of 19-16 over the course of the first 40 minutes of play. The Lightning are definitely putting the pressure on the Canucks tonight, but simple mistakes are starting to cause big trouble for the Lightning.
The Tampa Bay Lightning came into the third period looking as if they were ready to take the game back and get back on top. As has been the case over the course of the season, the Power Play served as the spark the Lightning needed.
At 3:31 in the third period, Canucks forward Jannik Hansen would trip up Lightning forward J.T. Brown and send him tumbling to the ice and flying under Ryan Miller and into the back of the net. Needless to say, Brown looked a little worse for wear as he made his way to the bench. Thankfully, he seemed to be mostly ok.
Hansen’s penalty would open the door mighty wide for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Lightning forward Jonathan Drouin would battle for the puck in the Vancouver zone. Drouin was under some pretty intense pressure, but he was able to use his uncanny situational awareness to wrestle the puck free and send it to Cory Conacher.
Conacher would get his stick on the puck in front of the net. He would pause for a split second to give the defense a chance to make their move. Once Conacher found his opening, he fired off the puck and watched as it sailed past Miller and into the back of the net. This was Cory Conacher’s first goal of the season.
Unfortunately, the Lightning didn’t have very long to celebrate as the Canucks offense was merely biding their time waiting for the opportune moment to strike. The Canucks would find themselves with another Power Play opportunity as Alex Killorn was sent to the sin bin for two minutes for Holding Luca Sbisa.
The Canucks battled in their offensive zone for control of the puck. It was Canucks forward Markus Granlund who would take the shot, but it was deflected off his teammate Loui Eriksson.
The puck heads right for Andrei Vasilevskiy. In what looked like a simple reflex, Vasilevskiy kicked the puck right out in front of him down the center. Canucks forward Bo Horvat was able to race down the ice almost completely unhindered where he would take the puck and sink it in the back of the net.
This would essentially pull the rug right out from under the Tampa Bay Lightning as the Canucks easily retook the lead for the Bolts. And just when you thought there was hope the Lightning could battle back to win this one, the hockey gods decided to swing their hammer and take away all manner of hope.
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The unceremonious swing of the hammer happened in the form of an empty net goal from Canucks forward Alexandre Burrows. As much as Lightning fans would love to believe otherwise, this would essentially be the final nail in the coffin of the Lightning’s hopes of building a winning streak.
On the bright side, the Tampa Bay Lightning still has one game left in this road trip to bring home a victory and turn this into a successful road trip. The bad news is, the aforementioned game is tomorrow night in Edmonton. There is always hope the Lightning can bring home a win, but there is no denying it’s going to be a tough challenge.
One aspect of the game the Lightning will need to work on once again is staying out of the penalty box. While the Lightning only gave the Canucks two opportunities with the man advantage, the Power Play goal the Canucks scored proved to be a difference maker in tonight’s contest.
There is no doubt this is a disheartening time for the Tampa Bay Lightning and their fans. Fans regularly pull their hair out trying to ascertain what happened to the Lightning’s promising season and where the team took their wrong turn. The most obvious culprit at this point is the insane amount of injuries.
At the same time, the Lightning have been down this road before and have always found a way to win. There is still plenty of time for the Bolts to accomplish this, but as the season continues on they are faced with less and less time to reach their desired outcome.
Tomorrow night, the Tampa Bay Lightning head to Rogers Place to do battle with the Edmonton Oilers. Unfortunately, the Oilers are incredibly rested, having played their last game on Tuesday night at home; a game in which they lost 3-1 to the Columbus Blue Jackets.
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It’s going to be an uphill battle for the Lightning, but we still have faith the Lightning will be able to get the job done. Hopefully, the Bolts will be able to get a couple of their injured players back in the lineup and the team can work to get back the chemistry that turned to chaos when the injuries set in.