Tampa Bay Lightning Come Home Empty-Handed Against Pittsburgh Penguins

The Tampa Bay Lightning came up empty-handed during their back-to-back weekend series as the Lightning fall to the Pittsburgh Penguins 6-2 at the PPG Paints Arena.

The Tampa Bay Lightning has finally reached a turning point in the season. As the Lightning charged into the PPG Paints Arena tonight to take on the reigning Stanley Cup Champion Pittsburgh Penguins, they have officially reached the second half of the season.

If the Lightning has any hopes of continuing play into the second week of April, the Lightning would need to make their move, and rather quickly. Right now, the Bolts are two points behind the Ottawa Senators for the third place spot in the Atlantic Division and four points removed from the Boston Bruins for second place.

The Bolts continue to deal with all manner of adversity, be it on the ice and off, but the Lightning have been down this road before and there is no reason they can’t find a way to work together and overcome like they have in the past. As we’ve said all season long, the greatest journeys begin with a single stride.

Tampa Bay Lightning

The question is, could the Tampa Bay Lightning take that stride tonight against the Pittsburgh Penguins?

Tampa Bay Lightning fans would definitely see a different Lightning team hit the ice tonight in Pittsburgh. The Lightning was skating with fire in their strides and the defense did a much better job of keeping the Pens from overwhelming Lightning netminder Andrei Vasilevskiy.

Unfortunately, with the exception of a few well-crafted scoring chances, the Lightning allowed the Penguins to dictate the pace of the game. In the first 20 minutes of play, the Penguins would outshoot the Lightning 15-10. At the same time, the Lightning would hold strong and keep the faceoff battle a 50-50 fight with the Pens.

If the Tampa Bay Lightning wants to emerge victoriously against a fast-paced team like the Pittsburgh Penguins, they are going to have to find a way to retake control of the game in the second period. The question was, could the Lightning play a consistent 60 minutes of hockey.

The second period started with a bang for the Tampa Bay Lightning. It was just over two minutes into the period when the Lightning would battle for possession of the puck in the offensive zone. Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman would come up with the puck at the blueline.

Hedman would pull his stick back and fire the puck at the net. The initial shot would be turned away by Penguins netminder Marc-Andre Fleury. Unfortunately for Fleury, he wouldn’t be quite so lucky with the rebound. Jonathan Drouin finds himself in the perfect position to catch Fleury unaware on the glove side and open up the scoring for the Tampa Bay Lightning.

The bad news for the Lightning is they wouldn’t have much time to celebrate their success. It would only be a matter of minutes before the Penguins would tie things up with a goal we’re pretty sure Andrei Vasilevskiy would like to get back.

Penguins forward Bryan Rust would take a shot at Vasilevskiy, which would easily cruise through his open five-hole. Unfortunately for Rust, the shot didn’t have quite enough gusto to make it to the back of the net. No worries, though. Penguins forward Conor Sheary was right there to tap in the puck on a clueless Vasilevskiy.

Unfortunately, this was only the starting point of the Lightning’s downward spiral in the second period. The Lightning were attempting to clear the puck out of their defensive zone. Unfortunately, the play ended with a turnover which leads to a 2-on-1 situation racing towards the net.

Lightning defenseman Victor Hedman would dive in an effort to intercept the pass from Matt Cullen to Eric Fehr, but it was all for not. Fehr would get his stick on the puck and fire it past a wide-open Vasilevskiy on the glove side. It seems Vasilevskiy over-committed to a potential shot from Cullen.

Tampa Bay Lightning fans were pretty lit up in the final minute of play. Cedric Paquette was attempting to play the puck along the boards when he would receive the business end of a high stick from Penguins defenseman Steve Oleksy. Paquette’s head snapped back as his stick flew out of his hand and he crumbled to the ice.

The play was stopped and Lightning Head Athletic Trainer Tom Mulligan rushed out on the ice to attend to Paquette. Cedric Paquette was able to make it to his feet and off the ice under his own volition, it was clear he was in a great deal of pain. Regrettably, this isn’t really what has Lightning fans fuming.

What has Lightning fans absolutely brimming with anger is the fact that the referees saw nothing wrong with the incident. In what world is that not high sticking? Play like that should be covered in Hockey Officiating 101. Unfortunately, with a referee like Francis Charron with the whistle in his mouth, you’re barking up the wrong tree if you’re looking for fair officiating.

When the buzzer would sound to end the second period, the Tampa Bay Lightning would trail the Pittsburgh Penguins 2-1. Once again, the Penguins would outshoot the Lightning; however, this time it would be by a smaller margin. The Pens would outshoot the Bolts 14-12 in the second period for a two-period total of 29-22.

Andrei Vasilevskiy made a few tremendous saves in the second period; however, the defense is going to have to dig a little deeper and Vasy is going to have to sharpen his situational awareness if the Lightning wants to come home with two points in hand.

The Tampa Bay Lightning really needed to get off to a strong start in the third period. Unfortunately, the Penguins had quite a bit to say about this. In fact, all it took was 2:33 for the Penguins to extend their lead over the Lightning to 3-1.

Andrei Vasilevskiy would turn away the initial shot from Penguins forward Nick Bonino, but the puck would quickly be picked up by defenseman Olli Maatta. Maatta centers the puck to a well-placed forward Chris Kunitz who would beat Vasilevskiy on the glove side and extend the Penguins lead to two goals.

It was a mere 55 seconds before the Penguins would make yet another move. The Pens would win the faceoff in the offensive zone. Anton Stralman couldn’t get his stick on the puck as it came off the boards. This led to two Lightning defensemen chasing a streaking Scott Wilson. Wilson easily beat Vasilevskiy on the glove side, which has proven to be the bane of Vasy’s existence as of late, to extend the Pens lead to three.

At this point in the game, the Tampa Bay Lightning hadn’t given up hope just yet. It was at 3:55 in the period when Olli Maatta would be sent to the sin bin for High Sticking against Ondrej Palat. This opened the door for a much-needed Power Play opportunity for the Lightning.

The Lightning was making their way into the offensive zone when Jonathan Drouin would attempt to center the puck. Unfortunately, the puck would bounce right past Valtteri Filppula; however, Vladislav Namestnikov would get his stick on the puck, pull back his stick without hesitation, and put the puck past Fleury.

Sadly, this would be the end of the line for the Tampa Bay Lightning. The Penguins would come back with a goal from Phil Kessel and a power play goal from Kris Letang, defeating the Lightning by the score of 6-2.

The Tampa Bay Lightning has reached a turning point in the season. Something simply has to change. The time for blaming the injuries and blaming the referees has come and gone. While we will concede the referees have been no friend to the Lightning, this is nothing new.

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Right now, the Tampa Bay Lightning are in a very similar place to the one they were in at this point last season. The biggest difference here is the Lightning don’t seem to be playing with anywhere near the effort necessary to pull themselves out of their rut they’ve buried themselves in.

The simple fact of the matter is Andrei Vasilevskiy’s head is not in the game. He is having issues dealing with having the workload thrust upon him. This does not make him a bad goaltender. In fact, he’s quite the opposite. Unfortunately, it is becoming increasingly clear he is not quite ready for full-time duty just yet.

At the very least, Andrei Vasilevskiy is in desperate need of a break. Vasilevskiy has already played two back-to-back series. In four more days, the Tampa Bay Lightning will be faced with two more back-to-backs in a row. At some point, be it Adam Wilcox or Kristers Gudlevskis, someone is going to have to give Vasy a break.

Of course, while Andrei Vasilevskiy does need a lot of work in order to be ready mentally for the full-time position between the pipes, the Lightning’s current losing streak is not all on him. The Lightning’s defense needs a serious overhaul.

There are plenty of ways the Lightning can go about effecting the necessary change; however, there are only two people who have the ability to affect this change…Lightning Vice President and General Manager Steve Yzerman and Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper.

The Tampa Bay Lightning has three days off to get their affairs in order and prepare themselves for their next challenge. On Thursday night, the Lightning will head back into the Amalie Arena to take on the Buffalo Sabres in the first half of their next back-to-back series.

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We don’t know about you, but we can’t wait to see what the Tampa Bay Lightning do in response to their current losing streak and what their plan is for making up the ground they’ve lost in the first half of the season. It should make for a really interesting night of hockey.