Be sure to 'like' Hockeybuzz on Facebook!
Three goals from Vladimir Tarasenko was enough to make it a season-high four losses in a row for the road weathered Tampa Bay Lightning Thursday night in a 5-4 defeat at Scottrade Center.
On a muffed clear by Alex Killorn, Colton Parayko chipped the puck to Tarasenko, who turnstiled Jason Garrison with ease before he beat Lightning goaltender Andrei Vasilevskiy just 1:39 into the first.
The Bolts then found themselves in an 0-2 hole thanks to an own-zone, shorthanded turnover from Victor Hedman that allowed the Blues to cycle the puck around and find a wide open Tarasenko for a one-time blast that beat Vasilievsky for his second goal of the night.
(This, unfortunately for the Bolts, would be a theme.)
But the Lightning did answer back shortly after Tarasenko’s second goal of the night when perhaps the unlikeliest trio in Tampa blue came through with a beautiful sequence in transition. Up the ice, Joel Vermin ditched the puck to the east, found Jonathan Drouin for a shot, and it was Cedric Paquette that banked the rebound home off Jake Allen’s pads and into the net on Paquette’s second goal of the year.
The Blues reestablished their two-goal edge less than three minutes later, though, behind another power-play goal, this one scored by Kevin Shattenkirk, with an assist from Paquette, to make it 3-1.
In a first period spent entirely too much in the Lightning end, the Blues had sustained pressure (their power plays helped, sure) while most of the Bolts’ chances came off on the rush one-looks on Allen.
St. Louis extended that lead to three behind Shattenkirk’s second power-play goal of the night, and put an end to Vasilevskiy’s night after allowing four goals on just 16 shots against.
With Ben Bishop in the net, the Bolts woke up behind Tyler Johnson’s sixth goal of the season, scored at the 14:25 mark of the second period, and finished the third down by just two tallies.
Tampa Bay actually moved within one of the Blues in the third, too, with a Nikita Kucherov goal scored just 101 seconds into the third period. And though they pressed on with a 12-shot final frame, the completion of a Tarasenko hat trick at the 8:11 mark of the third reestablished the Blues’ third two-goal edge of the night, and while Paquette made it a one-goal deficit once more, the Bolts could not tie things before they simply ran out of time in the third for the fourth straight contest.
Allen made 22 stops, while Shattenkirk and Tarasenko paced St. Louis with four points each.
This and that
- Oh, what a sight for sore eyes. Anton Stralman made his return to the Lightning lineup after missing the last nine games with an upper-body injury. And it was right back to normal for the veteran defender, as he finished with a plus-1 one rating, a shot on goal, three hits, and two blocked shots in 25:00 of time on ice (the second-most on the team, just 42 seconds behind Victor Hedman). Of course, nothing that Stralman did was necessarily sexy (and especially not in his first game back in nearly a month), but when Stralman is out there, there does seem to be a definite comfort that you don’t or have yet to see this year from other defenders on the Bolts’ backend.
- The Lightning would obviously prefer to have their regulars in action, but you couldn’t necessarily hate the game you saw from Joel Vermin and Michael Bournival in the loss. Though Bournival was in more of a spare forward role with under seven minutes played, Vermin was given bigger minutes, especially big minutes for a straight-up recall, with 16:13 of time on ice in the loss. But Vermin made his minutes count, with two assists, two shots on goal, and three hits. It’s just a game, and you don’t want to make any outlandish declarations just yet, but if the Bruins could find a way to turn Vermin into this year’s version of Jonathan Marchessault as a fill-in and find production, that’s key.
- Lightning netminder Ben Bishop initially rode the pine in his only visit to his hometown this season. A message sent for his recent struggles? You wonder. Bishop did get into the game, of course, and was actually saddled with the loss with his 9-of-10 relief performance as the Bolts scored four goals.
- The Blues are a tough match for a lot of teams. But they seem especially tough for the Lightning. With Thursday’s loss, the Bolts have now taken six straight games against the Lightning. It also seems that Shattenkirk comes through with mammoth games against 'em, too, so why not just cut out the middleman and find a way to acquire him. See if the Blues will throw Tarasenko into the trade, too.
Up next
Finally, after three consecutive road games and eight of their last 10 away from home overall, the Lightning will return home for Saturday’s head-to-head with the Capitals. The Bolts are 6-3-1 at Amalie Arena this season, and this will be first of three meetings with the Caps this season. They were swept by Washington in last year’s season series 3-0, and were outscored 11-to-6 over that stretch.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010 and has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013. Ty is also the Boston Bruins beat writer for WEEI.com and can also be found in the New England Hockey Journal. Contact him on Twitter or send him an email at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.
Tampa Bay Lightning Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»