After the Lightning beat up on the Predators and walked out of the Tampa Bay Times Forum with a 5-1 win last week, the Predators returned the favor in Nashville on Tuesday night and put an end to the Lightning’s unbeaten streak with a 2-1 victory of their own.

For the first time in their exhibition season, the Tampa Bay Lightning were simply outplayed. The Predators outshot the Lightning, out-chanced the Lightning, and ultimately outscored the Lightning on their way to victory. The Bolts passed up too many chances, and failed to generate the sort of urgency needed to make a comeback. That’s evidenced by the fact that the Lightning only ‘fired’ two shots at Pekka Rinne in the first period and three in the third period.

The Lightning’s best player on Tuesday was most certainly Anders Lindback. The lanky goaltender made his return to Nashville and gave the Lightning a chance to win. He faced 33 Predator shots and was forced to make a number of dandy saves just to keep the seemingly uninspired Bolts in the contest.

For the Lightning, the fact that Lindback has looked good through training camp scrimmages and limited preseason action means a lot. The reality is that when this team gets great goaltending it’s going to win more often than not; Tuesday’s game was merely a blip on the radar.

Lindback was perfect through nearly 25 minutes of play. Simon Moser broke the goaltender’s shutout bid when he followed up on a Rich Clune breakaway and tapped home an easy marker. The Lightning pressed through the middle frame but were unable to tie the game at one. While Rinne certainly deserves some credit, the Lightning needed to do more. A one goal deficit shouldn’t be the end of the world for any club in the National Hockey League.

Kevin Klein extended Nashville’s lead to two when he beat Lindback with just over five minutes left in the final period. Just as they had done all game, the Lightning continued to pass up on opportunities and throw away scoring chances. It wasn’t until the final minute that the Bolts finally broke through as Steven Stamkos took a pass from Jonathan Drouin and put the puck past Marek Mazanec, who took over from Rinne in the third, to cut the Predators’ lead in half. That was as close as the Lightning would get. The final buzzer rang and the Lightning went into the dressing room as losers for the first time in 2013-14.

Tuesday’s performance wasn’t a good one. The best thing now is for the Lightning to move on and focus on tomorrow’s tilt with the Florida Panthers. I’ll be back with a game preview for that one tomorrow evening.

As always, thanks for reading.

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