Tampa Bay Lightning Offense Fades In Game 3 Loss To Penguins

The Tampa Bay Lightning essentially hung goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy out to dry as a sad offensive effort led to a Game 3 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Despite losing Tampa Bay Lightning goaltender Ben Bishop is the latter part of the first period in Game 1 of the Eastern Conference Final, the Lightning were able to find a way to overcome and bring home the victory. Unfortunately, despite getting veteran defenseman Anton Stralman back in the lineup things seemed to fall apart for the Lightning in Game 2, losing 3-2 in overtime to the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Tonight, Game 3 brought these two Eastern Conference rivals back to the Amalie Arena here in the Sunshine State. The Lightning will certainly be looking to use the energy from the hometown crowd to fuel their fire as they look to get momentum back on their side and over the course of the next two games, send this series back to Pittsburgh with a 2-1 series lead for the Lightning.

The first period of play between these two teams was almost night and day compared to Game 2 of the series. The Tampa Bay Lightning were aggressive on the forecheck, they were passing efficiently, and working hard to capitalize on the opportunities in front of them.

One of the most surprising things about Game 3 is the referees seemed to have swallowed their whistles for much of the game. In the first period, the referees called one lone penalty, which would be awarded to Penguins right wing Patric Hornqvist for slashing Ryan Callahan.

When the buzzer would sound to end the first period of play, both the Tampa Bay Lightning and Pittsburgh Penguins would remain scoreless. One of the biggest differences between the first period of Game 3 and pretty much the whole of Game 2 is the Lightning would outshoot the Penguins 12-10. If the Tampa Bay Lightning wants to come out of this encounter victorious, they will need to keep the pressure on the Pens.

Unfortunately, as soon as the Tampa Bay Lightning took the ice for the second period of play, it looked as if a high school hockey team had taken the ice instead of the Lightning team that fought tooth and nail to make their way to the Eastern Conference Finals.

The Pittsburgh Penguins would open the scoring in the final 10 seconds of the second period, almost completely deflating what was left (if any) of the Lightning’s momentum. Jonathan Drouin had an opportunity to take a shot in the offensive zone, but he elected to turn back and pass. This led to Phil Kessel finding himself on a breakaway.

As he quickly approached the net, he took a shot on goal, which was quickly turned away by Andrei Vasilevskiy. Unfortunately, with Victor Hedman still chasing Kessel and Braydon Coburn simply not making it in time, Carl Hagelin found himself with the first goal of the night.

As much as it pains us to say this, the Tampa Bay Lightning were simply dismantled by the Pittsburgh Penguins in the second period. While the Lightning were barely able to muster a mere six shots on goal, the Penguins came up with 21 shots on goal. This brought the two-period total to 31-18 Penguins.

Just when you thought things couldn’t get any more discouraging, the team made their way out on the ice for the third period of play. We would have thought during the second intermission someone would have stood up and said something to light the fire in the team’s souls. Unfortunately, the message simply didn’t translate into a language the Tampa Bay Lightning offense could understand.

Just over five minutes into the third period, Phil Kessel would pick up his second goal of the night with assists to Nick Bonino and Carl Hagelin. Then…it happened. The Tampa Bay Lightning offense finally looked as if they had found their spark. After blowing by three Penguins on his way to the net, Tyler Johnson would get the Lightning on the board with assists going to his Triplet linemates Nikita Kucherov and Ondrej Palat.

Unfortunately, it would take less than five minutes before the unseemly phrase unnecessary penalties would rear its ugly head. First, there would be offsetting penalties as Ondrej Palat and Kris Letang would both head to the box for Roughing. It wasn’t until Braydon Coburn was sent to the box for two minutes for Elbowing Carl Hagelin in the head that the door would open for the Pittsburgh Penguins.

Just over one minute in the penalty to Coburn, Penguins captain Sidney Crosby would find the back of the net with assists from Evgeni Malkin and Justin Schultz. This would give the Penguins a 3-1 lead over the Lightning. Less than two minutes and 22 seconds later, Chris Kunitz was able to dig deep for the rebound, something the Lightning have come up short on lately, and extended the Pens lead once again, this time, to 4-1.

While they may have found themselves down 4-1, the Tampa Bay Lightning (and their fans) hadn’t quit just yet. Lightning defenseman Matt Carle would manage to keep the puck in the zone as he passed it forward to Nikita Kucherov. Kucherov would turn to see his linemate Ondrej Palat positioned perfectly in front of the net. Kucherov handed the puck off to Palat who never hesitated and sunk the puck past Matt Murray, lessening the Penguins’ lead to 4-2.

Unfortunately, this was about all the offense the Tampa Bay Lightning would be able to mount in this game. When the final buzzer would sound, the Pittsburgh Penguins would defeat the Tampa Bay Lightning 4-2 and give the Penguins a 2-1 series lead over the Lightning.

The one thing that absolutely killed the Tampa Bay Lightning tonight was their blatant lack of offensive pressure. The Tampa Bay Lightning were outshot 48-28 by the Pittsburgh Penguins tonight. Matt Murray could have taken a nap at some point in the game while Andrei Vasilevskiy was left to play Superman and the Flash all rolled into one at the other side of the ice.

Speaking of Andrei Vasilevskiy, anyone who lays the blame for this loss on the shoulders of Vasilevskiy clearly wasn’t watching the same game as every other hockey fan in the world.

Vasilevskiy has made some of the most incredible saves since stepping in between the pipes for the injured Ben Bishop. Tonight, Vasy stopped 44 of 48 shots for a Save Percentage of .917. This is not a far cry from the .929 Murray posted tonight.

The Tampa Bay Lightning might be down right now, but they are far from out. As most Tampa Bay Lightning fans will remember, the series between these two teams back in the 2010-11 season took all seven games to find a victor. Despite the Lightning’s slow start, it isn’t over until the final buzzer sounds.

Tampa Bay Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper is going to have to take a long and hard look at his players and decide how he wants to pair them up for the next game. At the same time, he may have to remove his foot from some players’ dark sides after tonight’s performance.

Hopefully, Cooper had a message for them in the locker room tonight that made the players take a long look in the mirror and decide if this is the best they have to offer. We all know the Tampa Bay Lightning can play better than this. If the Lightning wants to emerge victorious in this series, we’ll need to see a lot more of Game 1 and a lot less of Games 2 and 3.

Next: Tampa Bay Lightning “Jersey Ban” In Full Force Again

The Tampa Bay Lightning will make their way back into the Amalie Arena on Friday night to face off with the Pittsburgh Penguins in Game 4 of the 2016 Eastern Conference Final. If the Tampa Bay Lightning can manage to bring home a victory, they can return to Pittsburgh with their heads held high with a 2-2 series split with every opportunity in the world to bring home a victory deep in enemy territory.

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