The Edmonton Oilers were in town last night, and fans at Amalie Arena were treated to a positively delightful game.
It shouldn’t surprise anyone that, in a game between a Stanley Cup contender and a team fighting for positioning in the Connor McDavid sweepstakes, one team was held to only 19 shots all night; that includes only five in each of the first and second periods. It was a textbook defensive performance against a team with highflying, young talent… for the Oilers.
The Bolts were not good. They looked sluggish. They played down to their opponent. They made the game look a whole lot more difficult than it probably had to be. Had it not been for a couple miscues on the part of Edmonton players and some timely third period offense from Ondrej Palat, the result could have been very different.
It didn’t take long for the lackluster play to come back and haunt the Lightning. Only 13:52 into the game, former Bolt Benoit Pouliot scored a shorthanded goal to put the Oilers up 1-0. Everybody knows the Tampa power play is bad, but that play took it to a whole new level. Ryan Nugent-Hopkins was able to blow past Anton Stralman, and Pouliot followed up to finish off the play.
Thankfully, Tampa did respond soon enough. Just 7:10 into the first period, Matt Carle and Jason Garrison helped feed Steven Stamkos for his 26th goal of the year. With that tally, the captain has now scored five goals in his last four games; he sits tied for the league lead in goal scoring with Tyler Seguin and Rick Nash.
The tie was broken with 58 seconds left on the clock in the middle stanza. Who broke it? Benoit Pouliot, of course. This time it was a power play goal for Pouliot. His original shot pinballed off Jason Garrison’s foot and past Ben Bishop for the score. It counted just the same. The result was a 2-1 deficit for the Bolts with 20 minutes left on the clock.
Things shifted in the Lightning’s favor when some questionable Oilers coverage resulted in two Ondrej Palat goals. Just 1:33 into the third period, Palat found himself all alone in the right circle. From there he was able to take the puck and put it past Ben Scrivens with little trouble. Unsurprisingly, Nikita Kucherov and Tyler Johnson were credited with assists on the play.
Minutes later, a weak clearing attempt followed by a failed zone exit by Teddy Purcell ultimately resulted in what would become the game winning goal. Johnson kept the puck alive at the blue line and proceeded to feed it to Palat, who had plenty of time in the slot to seal the deal. It was a picture perfect goal, and it gave the Lightning the 3-2 lead they needed.
While his team did eventually win the game, Jon Cooper can’t be happy with what he saw from the Bolts on Thursday night. There was no killer instinct. A win is a win, but it shouldn’t be unreasonable to expect more than what we saw. Here’s hoping they take the time to practice and fix things up before the Colorado Avalanche and Vancouver Canucks pass through town.
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.