Callahan, Bishop Lead Tampa Bay Lightning to Gut-Check Win over Avs

OK, so it wasn’t exactly a Gordie Howe Hat Trick.

But Tampa Bay Lightning forward Ryan Callahan did score a goal, engage in fisticuffs, and pick up the game-winner in the shootout as the Bolts edged the Colorado Avalanche, 3-2, before a raucous crowd at the Amalie Arena in downtown Tampa on Saturday evening.

Couple Callahan’s heroics with a stellar performance in goal by Lightning netminder Ben Bishop, who stopped 40 of 42 shots — many of them point-blank — and Tampa Bay had enough of the right stuff to win its seventh straight home game, all seven of them by one-goal margins.

With one game left before the All-Star break, a home match with Vancouver on Tuesday night, the Lightning regained the Eastern Conference lead with 62 points, one better than the New York Islanders, and a 29-14-4 record. The Avalanche, meanwhile, finish up a five-game road trip with a battle against the Blues in St. Louis, one of the best in the West.

The Gordie Howe Hat Trick, named after the legendary forward for the old Detroit Red Wings, consists of a player scoring a goal, dishing an assist, and engaging in a fight in a single game. Howe himself only managed the feat three times in his legendary career. Former Lightning coach Rick Tocchet, according to one researcher, is the all-time NHL leader with 18 of ’em. Of the players on the ice Saturday night, Colorado’s Jarome Iginla has grabbed 11 GHHT’s, Tampa Bay’s Brenden Morrow 5. And Ryan Callahan sorta got his first one. Give the guy an asterisk. He’ll gladly take it.

The Lightning began Saturday night’s game the same way they played the final period in the winning effort against Edmonton on Thursday, skating hard, hitting harder, and peppering the goaltender with shots.

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The high-energy start forced the Avs into a penalty only 31 seconds into the game. The Bolts power play unit came out swinging, forcing Colorado goalie Semyon Varlamov to face a dizzying array of shots. Callahan shot twice from close in. Forward Brett Connolly tipped a puck at the net. Defenseman Victor Hedman, following Tyler Johnson‘s lead and recovering way faster than expected from a lower body injury, redirected another puck at Varlamov. And then Ondrej Palat sent in still another redirect.

And this was just the first 57 seconds of the game!

The Avalanche briefly regained control of the puck. Then defenseman Anton Stralman hit streaking winger Alex Killorn raging up the left flank. Killorn’s rush forced Varlamov to cheat to his right. Once Killer got Varlamov moving he sent a sweet cross-ice pass to Callahan, who blasted a hard wrister in and out of the top shelf. The Lightning took a 1-0 lead on the power play goal 1:58 into the first period.

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The Bolts continued to attack the net. In the first seven minutes the Lightning launched 10 shots at Varlamov. That’s as many shots as Tampa Bay took in the first 40 minutes of Thursday’s lackluster start.

The exciting first period also included Nikita Nesterov taking a rebound of a shot by teammate Jonathan “Cool Hand” Drouin right in the mouth. Nesterov skated off the ice leaking red. He was back by the end of the period. And it included an apparent Colorado goal being waved off after the refs realized that Iginla pushed Mark Barberio into Bishop, basically taking him out of the play. And it concluded with Iginla and Callahan squaring off for a short but spirited fight.

One period in the books and Callahan was two-thirds of the way to his first Gordie Howe Hat Trick.

The Bolts outshot the Avs 15-5 and outhit them 15-12. Things were looking good for the boys in black.

But the Avalanche came out strong in the second period, tying the game at 1-1 within the first minute and continuing to pressure the Bolts at both ends of the ice. Colorado shot early and often on offense; the Avs defense kept the Lightning skaters on the perimeter and permitted only low-percentage long-range shots. The period ended with Colorado outshooting Tampa Bay 20-9 in the period and 25-24 through 40 minutes. Each team had won a period and each team’s goalie had won a period. Varlamov and Bishop, of course, were Vezina Trophy finalists last season. They showed why in Saturday night’s game.

It was gut-check time.

The Lightning came out buzzing in the third period. The Drouin-Morrow-Boyle and Johnson-Palat-Kucherov lines spent plenty of time in the Avalanche zone. Valtteri Filppula fought for a puck on the right boards and bounced a pass to Anton Stralman, who wristed the puck from the point, a diving shot that got under the dropping Varlamov and into the net. 2-1, Lightning.

The rest of the period was Bishop Time. And Big Ben ticked off the saves. The Bolts committed their first two penalties of the game with 7:34 and 5:15 remaining in the period. No problem. The penalty kill allowed the Lightning to ice the puck, and they did. Bishop stopped the rest.

Colorado coach Patrick Roy emptied his net with 1:50 left in regulation, forcing the Bolts to play short-handed once again. Bishop stopped Brad Stuart on three straight close-in shots. Tyler Johnson and Stralman blocked pucks with their bodies. Nathan MacKinnon put one high over the net and All-Star Erik Johnson put one on Bishop. Nothing doing. But with 6.8 seconds left, captain Gabriel Landeskog found MacKinnon, the teenage phenom, alone at Bishop’s back door for an easy tap-in. 2-2.

The overtime period, the first for the Bolts in nearly a month, was relatively uneventful.

The Avs entered the shootout with a 5-3 record this season, the Lightning at 1-4.

This time the Bolts prevailed. Nikita Kucherov and Matt Duchene traded patient slip-ins. Then Callahan deked, juked, shimmied, and shook, sliding in the game-winner as the fans roared. Ben Bishop’s big game was rewarded with the W.

Maybe we’ll just call it the Ryan Callahan Hat Trick from now on. A goal, a fight, a shoot-out clincher. And a gutsy victory for his team.