Tampa Bay Lightning lose frustrating game to Vegas Golden Knights
The Tampa Bay Lightning dropped their last home game before a long road trip by a frustrating score of 4-1 to the Las Vegas Golden Knights.
For the second time in as many games, the Tampa Bay Lightning would allow a goal under a minute into the game. In defense of the Bolts, the shot was tipped by James Neal in a way that was almost unpredictable.
However, the result was still the same and the Bolts were down 1-0. The Lightning had a hard time getting just about anything started in the first period. It was easy to see that the Lightning has not played in about a week, and it was also easy to see that Vegas has.
The Vegas Golden Knights would end up netting another before the end of the period and the Lightning would find themselves down 2-0 at the end of the first period.
It would be almost halfway through the second period before the Bolts would get a much-needed wake-up. After some rather lenient officiating from the referees, the Lightning would finally get the first Power Play of the night as Erik Karlsson was called for tripping.
Tampa Bay Lightning
A switch flipped for the Bolts, and suddenly their offense was firing. Their efforts would be rewarded with a goal from Ondrej Palat to cut the Golden Knights lead to just one.
It seemed this was the overdue wakeup call the Bolts needed. Unfortunately, the Golden Knights would add another to their lead before the end of the period.
The third period wouldn’t be much better for the Lightning either. The Golden Knights would extend their lead and unfortunately for the Bolts, that would be the only change to the scoreboard.
Once again, the Lightning didn’t put themselves in a position of success by going down early. The Golden Knights are not a team to try to mount a comeback against. In fact, once they had their early lead, it allowed them to turn the game into their game and they played it how they wanted for the rest of the night.
The frustration of the Bolts was almost palpable. They had no shortage of chances during the last two periods, but nothing would fall their way. Sometimes frustrating nights like this happen, and luckily there haven’t been very many of them so far this year.
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A long road trip stands in front of the Bolts, including a few games up in Canada. The All-Star Game will break it up, but other than that, the Lighting won’t be in Amalie again for almost a month. Their next game will be against the Minnesota Wild in Minnesota on January 20.