Remember to Give Michael a Follow on Twitter!
The Buffalo Sabres came to the Tampa Bay Times Forum on Tuesday night, failed to generate chances, took plenty of penalties, and did just about everything they could to ensure that the Lightning walked out with a win and two points. Unfortunately, your Tampa Bay Lightning failed to pick up on the Sabres’ not-so-subtle gestures, and they handed the boys from Buffalo their first win in eleven days.
While it’s easy to look at the boxscore from Tuesday’s tilt and point to Ryan Miller’s terrific stats as a potential reason for the Lightning’s woes, it’s no excuse. The Sabres took six penalties, and gave the Lightning 46 seconds of five-on-three play. Even with the victory practically giftwrapped, the Bolts couldn’t muster enough of an effort, or enough of a killer instinct to get the job done. The Sabres are a 15th place hockey club, and teams that view themselves as playoff contenders should beat a 15th place hockey club.
Over the past few weeks, Lightning commenters have talked about how the Bolts need to put forth a sixty minute effort on a more consistent effort. Well, on Tuesday night the Lightning fell about 59 minutes short of that goal.
Steven Stamkos opened the scoring just over a minute into the game as he was the beneficiary of a great individual power-forward-like effort from Teddy Purcell. Purcell pushed his way through the Buffalo zone and fired a weak shot that generated a rebound on which Stamkos pounced. Stamkos’ league leading 14th of the season from Purcell and Conacher gave the Lightning a 1-0 lead. Other than Mathieu Garon’s performance down the stretch, that goal was arguably the only bright spot for the Lightning.
The Sabres would tie the game later in the first period as Cody Hodgson was able to bank the puck off a Lightning jersey and into the net. Given Ryan Miller’s solid performance, and the Lightning’s lack of intensity, it didn’t come as a shock that Hodgson’s eighth of the season kept the Sabres in the game all night long. Simply put – despite numerous great chances, and giftwrapped opportunities, the Lightning couldn’t get the job done. Good teams get the job done more often than not; right now, the Lightning aren’t playing like a good team.
After taking a couple of bad penalties in the second period, Tyler Myers redeemed himself 52 seconds into the third period as he scored what would eventually become the game winning goal. Mathieu Garon got caught out of position after some feverish play around his net, and Myers was left all alone in the high slot to fire home his third of the season.
On many occasions this season, the Lightning have mounted inspiring third period comebacks. For whatever reason, that just wasn’t the case on Tuesday night. The players just didn’t have it in them, even with the goaltender pulled, to beat Ryan Miller. Steven Stamkos fired eight shots, Mathieu Garon was solid, but other than that things were pretty bleak for the Tampa Bay Lightning.
To make matters worse, Lightning defensive stalwart Sami Salo left the game in the second period with a mysterious lower-body injury. While the Lightning announced that the injury isn’t believed to be serious, he was deeply missed in the third period. To be blunt – Brian Lee isn’t a top four defender. For the Lightning’s sake, hopefully Salo can get back in there sooner rather than later.
Losing to a 15th place team is always embarrassing. Losing to a 15th place team on home ice is even more embarrassing. The Sabres, and the officials gave the Lightning everything they could have possibly needed to win the game and grab the Southeast Division lead. The team flat out missed the boat.
As always, thanks for reading.
Just a side note – Congratulations to Ron Rolston for grabbing his first win as a National Hockey League head coach. Here’s to many more, Ron!
Ottawa Senators Blogger • 
Join the Discussion:
»