The Tampa Bay Lightning dominated the Detroit Red Wings in Game One of their Eastern Conference Quarterfinal series. They hemmed them in the offensive zone, they kept them to the outside in the defensive zone, and they blew by them in the neutral zone. They dominated… everywhere except the scoreboard. The result was a crushing 3-2 loss.
Unlike the last time they played in the postseason, the Bolts came out on Thursday and established themselves as the better team. The trouble, unfortunately, was less-than-stellar goaltending from Ben Bishop and a power play that was colder than Winnipeg in the middle of January. When you, as a team, hold your opponent to less than 15 shots in a hockey game, fire 46 shots at the opposing goaltender, and have seven (!) power play opportunities of your own, you should win the game. The Lightning didn’t. They now find themselves down 0-1 in the series.
For those of you who are looking for a visual depiction of the Lightning’s complete and total grasp on this hockey game, here’s a possession chart courtesy of HockeyStats.ca:
As the tweet notes, possession doesn’t mean a whole lot. A seven-game playoff series is such a short sample. Wins matter. Detroit now has one more than Tampa Bay. That’s what counts.
While they found themselves chasing all night, the Lightning’s road to the eventual loss was one paved with hope and optimism. They came out of the gate hot, and peppered Petr Mrazek with a number of shots. Their momentum was squashed only 9:01 into the first period when, on his team’s first shot of the game, Pavel Datsyuk tipped home his first of the postseason to put the Wings up 1-0.
About five minutes after that, things went from bad to worse. Already down 1-0 despite the good start, the Lightning found themselves shorthanded thanks to a Ryan Callahan hooking penalty. The chance for things to implode certainly existed at that juncture. Thankfully the opposite happened. Able to take advantage of a Detroit miscue, Brian Boyle scored a shorthanded goal at 14:31 to knot things up at one. Once again, the Lightning had their spark.
The atmosphere at Amalie improved noticeably after that Boyle goal and through the rest of the first period. The Bolts outshot the Red Wings 10-3 in the first frame, and looked like a team that was going to earn a victory. Trouble struck again, however, only eight seconds into the second period when Datsyuk wristed a bullet past Bishop for his second of the night.
Despite the fact that they peppered Mrazek with 17 (!) shots in the middle frame, the Datsyuk marker was the only one to be scored. Mrazek made the saves his team needed him to make. Bishop did not.
Even as they found themselves down by one through two periods of play, the Lightning probably felt that they had life in the game. Playing the way they were, it was hard not to like their chances to score a goal in the final period. The hockey gods had other plans.
Luke Glendening scored the dagger just 5:50 into the third to make it a 3-1 game, and all but seal the deal. His weak spin-o-rama backhand shot squeaked through Bishop’s five-hole with ease. I don’t want to say that it was a shot your grandmother could have stopped, but it was a shot your grandmother could have stopped. The puck moved at a snail’s pace as it snuck between Bishop’s pads and into the net. Bishop needed to have that one.
The ugly Glendening goal became even more consequential when Nikita Nesterov scored his first of the playoffs only minutes later to pull the Lightning back to within one. Was Glendening’s peewee-quality goal really going to stand as the game-winning tally? You bet!
Tampa fought right until the final buzzer, but was unable to beat Mrazek when they needed another goal. Credit the young Detroit netminder for making huge saves all night long, and for truly stealing a victory on the road. His team had no business being in the game, but he did his part to make it happen.
On the flipside, Bishop needs to be better. In his National Hockey League playoff debut, he was subpar. Stopping 11 of 14 shots simply isn’t good enough. And then there’s this little tidbit of information…
Obviously sample size plays a big role here, but it’s still fairly sad to see.
If you’re Jon Cooper, your job right now is to tell your team to go out and do the same thing on Saturday. If the Lightning play like this again, it’s hard not to like their chances. The power play needs a ton of work, but the team's general process this evening was good. Small tweaks rather than sweeping changes - that has to be the message.
The old adage is that a team isn’t in trouble in the playoffs until it loses on home ice; the Lightning no longer have that cushion. If they want to win this series, they’ll have to win at least one game at Joe Louis Arena. A win on Saturday at Amalie would make the prospect of a comeback much more realistic.
As always, thanks for reading.
Michael Stuart has been the Tampa Bay Lightning writer for HockeyBuzz since 2012. Visit his archive to read more or follow him on Twitter. 
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