The Tampa Bay Lightning could not end their five-game homestand on a high note as they suffered a rather decisive defeat to the Nashville Predators for their second straight loss. The Lightning are now 19-17-4 40 games into the 2016-17 regular season.
Overall, the opening period of the contest was a quite one with either team really able to get their offense going. There was a grand total of nine shots on net with Tampa Bay taking five and Nashville recording four.
As has been the case to often this season, the Lightning failed to be the team to get on the board first. Predators’ captain, Mike Fisher, scored his 11th goal of the season on a power play 2:25 into the game to put Nashville up 1-0. Ryan Johansen and Mattias Ekholm both recorded assists on the goal.
Penalties were once again a theme in the first period as both teams had two power play opportunities. Unfortunately for the Bolts, the opposition was the only team able to capitalize on the man-advantage.
The second period saw another Nashville goal early on as Filip Forsberg scored his 9th goal of the season 3:56 into the period to make it 2-0. Kevin Fiala and Johansen recorded assists on the goal.
Right after Nashville scored, the momentum confusingly appeared to swing in the direction of Tampa Bay. Tyler Johnson made it 2-1 with his 12th goal assisted by Victor Hedman and Alex Killorn. The Lightning maintained control of the game for a bit and spent a lot of time screening Pekka Rinne, looking to deflect a puck into the net.
Unfortunately, the next goal two goals of the period would belong to the Nashville Predators. First, Colton Sissons would make it 3-1 with his third of the year. The next Predators’ goal would take quite some time to figure out. At first, Ryan Ellis’s goal was called off due to goaltender interference. However, Nashville felt like the incidental contact had no effect on Andrei Vasilevskiy’s ability to stop the puck. Eventually, the referees would agree, counting the goal to make it 4-1 in the Predators favor. Jon Cooper challenged that the play was offside but it was ruled inconclusive.
The Lightning would once again enter the second intermission down, this time facing a three-goal deficit. Tampa has had to play from behind too often this season. A team cannot expect to win a lot of games when they always have to pull off comebacks. They just take way too much physical and emotional effort to do it with any sort of consistency.
As for the third and final period, it was pretty uneventful. In an attempt to get something going, Cooper pulled Vasilevskiy with about seven minutes left in the game. Unfortunately, all that did was lead to an empty net goal for the Predators to make it 5-1 with over five minutes to play.
The bleeding did not stop there as Sissons scored his third goal for the hat trick with three minutes left, giving Nashville a 6-1 lead.
After tonight's disappointing 6-1 loss to the Predators, the Lightning are in desperate need of a victory. They will look to make that happen when they head to Philadelphia to take on the Flyers on Saturday afternoon.