Another look at the Lightning’s “Wild” shutout loss last week

Despite the Tampa Bay Lightning quickly getting back in the win column against the Detroit Red Wings this past Saturday, let’s take a look back at that shutout loss to the Minnesota Wild last Thursday.

Why on Earth would we look back at such a game when this Bolts team has appeared, in many ways, nearly flawless? Sure the Lightning are dominating this season, sitting comfortably ahead of everyone in the NHL standings – as they have been for a while now – and they currently remain the only team to have officially punched their ticket to the Stanley Cup playoffs.

However, we do know that when it comes to the postseason, all bets are off and everything we know and can gather from the regular season gets thrown out the window, with the exception of playoff seeding of course.

So what makes this Wild loss so special? Nothing really if it was any other team than the Bolts.

This was the Lightning’s worst shutout all year, losing 3-0, with the only other time being a 1-0 overtime loss to the St. Louis Blues back in February. But this was not necessarily the Bolts’ worst played game. In fact, some might say Tampa Bay put up a pretty solid performance. The Bolts penalty kill was successful on all four Minnesota power play opportunities. Tampa Bay won the faceoff battles with 57-percent success for the night, blocked more shots (21 to Minnesota’s 18), registered more hits (27 to 18), and even had one less giveaway on the night.

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But when it comes down to looking at this game, the Lightning were outplayed by a thirstier, hungrier Wild team, or at least a thirstier and hungrier Jason Zucker who scored all three Minnesota goals.

Now this isn’t an outcry for Tampa Bay to hit the panic button. As mentioned before, the Bolts already sealed a pretty dominant victory over Detroit since this Wild game. But this is an acknowledgement of a night where the Lightning were beaten, and beaten well, by what many would consider an inferior opponent.

This 3-0 shutout sealed a two-game season series sweep of the Lightning for Minnesota, with the only other team to accomplish that feat being the Nashville Predators.

Can you imagine what the storylines would be if the Wild were an Eastern Conference team?

It seems very possible for the Wild to end up in the second wild card spot in the West, and it would make for quite the First Round matchup if these teams shared the same conference in the NHL. But, for better or for worse, the only way these teams can meet again this season would be in the Stanley Cup Final, which seems like a much taller task for one of these teams in particular.

This 3-0 shutout to Minnesota could simply boil down to the fact that the Wild were playing in “desperation mode” while the Bolts were not. The Wild were coming into Thursday night’s game and still remain now, in the midst of a four-team battle for the two Western Conference wild card spots.

Maybe we will see the Lightning drop another game out of their remaining 13 in a similar fashion to this one. Maybe not. But you can bet that come playoff time, true identities and colors will be revealed and there will be no “desperation mode” excuses.

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