Tampa Bay Lightning fall short against New Jersey Devils in shootout

The Tampa Bay Lightning would pick up one lone point after falling short 5-4 to the New Jersey Devils in a shootout in Jersey.

The Tampa Bay Lightning found themselves presented with yet another difficult challenge tonight in the Garden State. After defeating the Detroit Red Wings 3-2 at the Amalie Arena last night, the Lightning headed to the Prudential Center to do it all over again and take on the New Jersey Devils.

One of the biggest changes tonight was Lightning goaltender Peter Budaj got his first start of the season as he went between the pipes in place of Andrei Vasilevskiy. There was another change to the lineup tonight. Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper elected to put defenseman Andrej Sustr in the lineup in place of Slater Koekkoek. Needless to say, Lightning fans expected an interesting night of hockey.

Unfortunately, tonight’s encounter didn’t exactly start off the way the Lightning (or their fans for that matter) would’ve hoped. Just 2:45 into the first period, the Devils would strike first blood with a goal from winger Drew Stafford. Thankfully, the Lightning weren’t willing to quietly fade into oblivion.

Tampa Bay Lightning

Around five minutes later, Lightning forward Vladislav Namestnikov would pick up his third goal of the season to tie things up for the Bolts. The Lightning’s leading point scorer and captain (respectively) would pick up assists on Vladdy’s goal, number four for Kucherov and number nine for Stamkos.

Just past the halfway point in the period, the Lightning would take the lead for the first time with a goal from Lightning winger Ondrej Palat. Palat’s first period goal was his third of the season. Combine this with his assist and he has put up four points so far this season.

Unfortunately, this is where things took a decided turn for the worse for the Tampa Bay Lightning. Before the first period would come to a close, the Devils would put another two goals on the board to retake the lead from the Bolts. The first goal came on the Power Play from Devils winger Kyle Palmieri. The second came from winger Brian Gibbons with under a minute left in the period.

There is no nice way to say this. If the Tampa Bay Lightning had any hopes of getting back into the game and walking away with a win, things were going to change rather seriously in the second period. We may never know what was said in the locker room, but it’s pretty apparent whatever it was did the trick.

If you were to base your hopes off the first 10 minutes of the second period, you may have had some doubts lingering in your mind. However, if you were to base your thoughts off of the second half of the period, things would look much more pleasant; mostly thanks to some guy named Kucherov.

Just past the 14 minute mark in the second period, Nikita Kucherov would raise the bar just a little bit higher as he picks up his eighth goal of the season, becoming one of four players to have scored a goal in each of their first seven games. If these numbers don’t qualify someone for the G.O.A.T. title, we don’t know what does.

In the last three minutes of the second period, Lightning captain Steven Stamkos would pick up his second goal of the season, with an assist from Yanni Gourde, to retake the lead for the Lightning. The Lightning definitely had better control of the puck in the second, but they would need to continue this into the third if they wanted to walk out of Jersey with the win.

There would be a great deal of back and forth between the Lightning and the Devils in the third period, but the next time the buzzer sounded, it would ultimately be for the Devils. At 13:57 in the third, the Devils would find themselves on the Power Play as Andrej Sustr was sent to the box for Tripping Nico Hischier. They would use this opportunity to convert and tie things up once again with the second goal of the night from Drew Stafford.

The Lightning found themselves incapable of pushing ahead in the final 20 minutes of play. This would mean, when the buzzer sounded to end the third period of play, the Lightning and the Devils would be headed to overtime. While this is not the kind of situation the team hoped to find themselves in, picking up one point is better than walking away empty-handed.

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The Bolts would find themselves with a monumental advantage in the overtime period. At 4:12 in the overtime period, the Lightning would find themselves on the Power Play thanks to a penalty against Adam Henrique for Tripping Bolts forward Ondrej Palat.

Would the Bolts be able to capitalize on their newfound opportunity and regain control of the game? Unfortunately, no…no they wouldn’t. Once again, when the buzzer would sound, the game would escalate to the next level. This time, the game would be headed to one of the few things that make Lightning fans cringe, the shootout.

Lightning netminder Peter Budaj would put a stop to the first two shooters from the New Jersey Devils, but the third, Kyle Palmieri, would beat Budaj and put the puck in the back of the net. Unfortunately, Devils netminder Cory Schneider would turn away the shot from Ryan Callahan and would walk away with the victory.

As we mentioned before, things could’ve gone better, but they certainly could’ve gone worse. The Lightning were able to pick up three points in their back-to-back series and this is far better than the way things could’ve turned out. This is not to say there weren’t their fair share of mistakes.

There are more than likely a few of the goals Budaj allowed in that he would like to have back. At the same time, this was his first time on the ice this season, so there is at least a little room for mistakes like these; especially at this early point in the season. Where things will start to become an issue is if they continue throughout the season. This will definitely be something the team, as well as their fans, will be monitoring.

Of course, we think an old saying comes into play tonight. As we have said a million times before, if something isn’t broken, don’t fix it. There were some changes to the lineup tonight which many Lightning fans questioned. Maybe they had something to do with the outcome tonight, maybe they didn’t. What will be telling is if these changes remain when the Lightning get back to business on Thursday night.

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Speaking of Thursday night, the Lightning will have tomorrow off before making their way to the Nationwide Arena to take on the Columbus Blue Jackets. With the exception of a few bumps along the way, the Lightning have had a pretty stellar start to the season. Hopefully, the Bolts will be able to regroup and get back on track by the time they roll into Columbus on Thursday.