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The frustrating win one-lose one pattern of the Tampa Bay Lightning continued on its second cycle on Wednesday night behind a 5-4 shootout loss to the Nashville Predators at Bridgestone Arena.
The Bolts and Preds began the night with an even back-and-forth battle, with the Bolts’ best first-period look coming just over five minutes into the first on a Brian Boyle breakaway. The 6-foot-7 Boyle broke away from defenseman Anthony Bitetto and charged towards Pekka Rinne, but as Boyle went backhand to forehand in a bid to tuck the puck around Rinne, the towering Nashville netminder extended his leg outward and denied Boyle’s bid for his third goal of the year.
Tampa Bay’s offense had another look later in the first, too, with Jonathan Drouin denied on the doorstep on a power-play opportunity that came off a beautiful feed to the top of the crease by Steven Stamkos. But again, Rinne, with the help of his 6-foot-5 frame, stood tall.
With each team putting 10 shots on the opposite goaltender through 19 minutes of the first period, it would be a jump up into the offensive zone by Nashville captain Shea Weber that opened the floodgates of scoring in this one. Drawing two Lightning skaters to him with a drive into the offensive zone, Weber found Mike Fisher in front of the net with a poke home for his first of the year.
And then came a torrid second period in which the Lightning and Predators combined for five goals -- three from Tampa Bay and two from Nashville -- and a 3-3 draw through 40 minutes of play.
The Lightning goals came from the usual suspects. Stamkos’ power-play bullet off Rinne and in was good for his fifth of the season, a Nikita Kucherov fortunate bounce went off Rinne and in, and Ryan Callahan scored the club’s third goal of the period. The same could be said for the Preds’ strikes, as Weber blasted his first of the year home while James Neal sniped another game-tying goal home.
It seemed that whenever the Bolts would pull away, the Predators would draw even on the next shift. It was a period in which the Bolts blew their lead on two separate occasions. And even when Erik Condra put Tampa Bay up for a third time in the game 5:24 into the third period, it wouldn’t hold.
In search of yet another game-tying tally, Condra and Matt Carle lost Neal on the right side of the ice, and gave Filip Forsberg more than enough space to find Neal’s one-timer for his second blast of the game and a 4-4 score with just 5:29 left in the third period.
The score would hold through 65 minutes of play, too, before Forsberg shootout strike in the first round held as the only scoring of the extra session, and gave the Predators the 5-4 victory over Tampa Bay.
Random thoughts and notes
- This felt as even a game as there’s been for the Lightning in 2015-16. Perhaps the Philadelphia game is a close second, but the Bolts and Preds were taking the opposition’s best punch all game long with a relentless pace from end to end. And it came down to goaltending and which goaltender could make that one save that the other couldn’t. Overall, their numbers as a whole were not spectacular, but when you look at the difficulty of the saves both Bishop and Rinne had to make throughout the night, there’s absolutely no shame in Big Ben losing this battle to a perennial Vezina candidate in Rinne.
- But if there’s a minus to take away from this one if you’re the Lightning, it’s with their inability to hold on to the lead. If you have the lead on three different occasions in a game, you should find a way to win that game. It’s as simple as that. On the road, at home, it doesn’t matter. At a certain point, a team needs to buckle down and either run away with a lead or tighten up defensively to hang onto it.
The Lightning’s longest lead of their three leads on the night was 9:06. And that came in the third.
- Following last year’s 15-goal, 24-point campaign in his first year with the Lightning, I thought it would be natural to expect a dip in the play of Brian Boyle. But seven games into his second year with the Blue and White, No. 11’s offensive game is still there. And paying off in a big way.
The Massachusetts native didn’t connect for a goal on the night, of course, but was still a noticeable presence in the attacking zone, nearly connecting on a breakaway bid and creating Condra’s goal with a strong drive to the net and winning the ensuing puck battle around Rinne’s crease.
Boyle’s currently paced for a 40-point season, and while you’d be nuts to envision the 30-year-old finishing the year anywhere close to that, it’s clear that his offensive game is still there within that role.
- Not a bad return to the rink for Victor Hedman after missing last Saturday’s game with an upper-body injury sustained on a big hit from Dallas Stars captain Jamie Benn on Thursday. In 23:51 of time on ice, the Swedish defender put up two assists -- including a beautiful dish on Stamkos’ early second period power-play goal -- and a 55.32% CF%, second among TB defensemen.
Up next
The Lightning travel to Winnipeg for a Friday night showdown with the Jets. The former division rivals split last season’s head-to-head series with one win apiece, while the Jets enter this contest with wins in all but three of their last eight head-to-head meetings with Tampa Bay.
Ty Anderson has been covering the National Hockey League for HockeyBuzz.com since 2010, has been a member of the Pro Hockey Writers Association's Boston Chapter since 2013, and can be contacted on Twitter, or emailed at Ty.AndersonHB[at]gmail.com.