Tampa Bay Lightning Outplay Boston Bruins Late, Still Fall In Shootout

The Tampa Bay Lightning entered Boston’s TD Garden looking to exorcise one of their biggest demons in recent history on Thursday night, the “Big, Bad” Boston Bruins.

Unfortunately, the whole beating Boston on their home ice will have to wait until next season (or the playoffs if these two teams were to meet), as the Lightning fell 3-2 in a shootout.

It wasn’t a good opening act by Lightning standards. They allowed the Bruins easy zone entries and took a lazy penalty during the opening minutes. Part of that may have been leftover residue from Tuesday night’s hard fought overtime win in Montreal or even that gloomy feeling that comes with losing three key contributors to injury at such a critical juncture of the season.

Whatever it was, the urgency wasn’t there from the get-go.

About eight minutes, that proved costly with David Pastrnak scoring to give the Bruins a 1-0 lead. There was some thought he may have kicked it in, which would’ve automatically erased the score, but in the end it was deemed to be a legal goal. 1-0 Bruins, and the feeling of “Here we go again” seemed to be setting in pretty much everywhere.

Not with the guys on the ice though.

Seven and a half minutes later, a rare turnover by Bruins captain Zdeno Chara landed on the stick of Lightning captain Steven Stamkos. He then maneuvered the puck past defenseman Dougie Hamilton before firing a laser past netminder Tuukka Rask. A world class move by a world class player and this game was tied at one apiece after 20 minutes.

During the second period, the Lightning were in the drivers seat. They outshot the Bruins by a fairly large margin and looked ready to erupt with goals at any moment. That didn’t happen, largely thanks to last years Vezina Trophy winner in Rask and his new best friend the post, who kept us in a 1-1 deadlock after 40 minutes.

Feeling the pressure of fighting for their playoff life as opposed to what they’re used to, the Bruins showed urgency to open the final 20 minutes. This caused the Lightning to scramble a bit, resulting in a neutral zone turnover that Patrice Bergeron wristed past Bishop from a mile out. 2-1 and the pressure to tie was at an all-time high.

Nearly six minutes later, the Lightning finally got a break in their favor. Defenseman Mark Barberio shot the puck on net that Rask saved. The rebound, however, squirted loose and rookie Vladislav Namestnikov was johnny on the spot, slapping it into the open side. It was deadlocked at two and the sighs of relief were fairly evident.

Overtime brought tense moments for both sides. More so for the Lightning though, as one potential power play was erased when Boston native Chris Rooney decided to call Alex Killorn for embellishment when the Bruins had gotten away with the same thing early in the game. Then a partial power play yielded nothing.

Right when that expired, Stamkos found himself wide open for a one-timer. His stick broke on the shot though, leading him to throw the broken piece away in what can only be described as a mixture of disgust and frustration. The action resulted in a 10 minute misconduct penalty that ended his night a little prematurely.

In the dreaded skills competition, Brad Marchand and Bergeron both beat Bishop while Rask stopped Nikita Kucherov and saw rookie Jonathan Drouin‘s shot hit the post. The result was a 3-2 Bruins win.

I’m not usually big on blaming the officials, but seeing as this game had a controversial call early which led to a goal, and then a crap call in overtime to even things out instead of giving the Tampa Bay Lightning a power play that could’ve turned into a 5-on-3 after Hedman got hooked, there’s no doubt the refs were contributing to any late momentum the Bruins got.

As for the Stamkos misconduct, I think it’s a stupid rule that a player’s tossed from a game altogether for throwing their stick. That being said, what he did was wrong and not a move you expect from your leader. No ifs, ands or buts about it.

Lost in all the late hubbub, the Lightning’s point moved them into a tie for first place in the Atlantic Division after the Montreal Canadiens coughed up a lead and lost to the Ottawa Senators. That’s something worth celebrating, even if only for a few moments.

Moving forward, the Tampa Bay Lightning need to keep up this intensity on home ice against elite teams or ones battling for their playoff lives. This begins Saturday night against the Western Conference’s Winnipeg Jets. Puck drops at 7 p.m.

Who stood out to you in the Lightning’s shootout loss in Boston? How did you feel the team played minus three key cogs? When do you think the guys will break the Beantown curse? Let us know what you think in the comment section below.

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