Tampa Bay Lightning Drop Second of Back-to-Back in Arizona

The Tampa Bay Lightning lost both games of their central division back-to-back after falling 3-1 to the pesky Arizona Coyotes Tuesday night. Tampa Bay was better than they were on Monday in Colorado but were unable to get a different result.

The Lightning dominated much of the game Tuesday in Arizona. They had a ton of offensive zone possession time and a very high volume of shot attempts. The inefficiency on offensive led to them dropping their second straight game before heading home.

Everything Evens Out

The hockey gods have gotten level with the Lightning after their eight goals on 14 shots performance in Carolina last Friday. In the two games since then, the Lightning have two goals on 70 shots. Friday was obviously and anomaly but it would also be reasonable to expect that the Lightning would have more than just two goals to show for their last two games.

One reason for the offense drying up is that the power play has not clicked in these last two games. Between Monday and Tuesday, the Lightning went scoreless in five total power play opportunities. The power play has cooled down from the hot pace they were on but also their opportunities have been limited as well and you would often expect to see more than five power play tries in two games.

Johansson Back in Net

Tuesday was the first start for Jonas Johansson in the Lightning net as the “back up” following Andrei Vasilevskiy’s return to action. He did a fine job in his time as the starter but it will be interesting to see how he does with his starts now being significantly less frequent.

Johansson did not have his best outing after allowing three goals on 25 Arizona shots. A couple of the goals against came from strange angle shots with bodies and traffic in the way. Part of the problem for Johansson was that the Lightning were carrying much of the play and he was not seeing action for large stretches of time and when Arizona did get chances, they were capitalizing.

Inefficient on Offense

The Lightning did a lot of good things offensively. They had the puck a ton and passed it around well in their offensive end and created 76 shot attempts. Of those 76 attempts, 25 were blocked and 20 missed the net all together. It was just that kind of night for the Lightning as a lot of their chances just did not end up making it on target. Steven Stamkos missing a wide open cage in the second period summed up the night.

Connor Ingram was also very strong in the Coyotes net as he stopped 30 of 31 Lightning shots on goal. The former Lightning draft pick seems to have their number after shutting out the Lightning in Arizona last year. Tampa Bay managed to get one goal past him thanks to Nikita Kucherov setting up Brayden Point for the Lightning’s lone highlight of the night.