The Tampa Bay Lightning battled back from a 2-0 deficit to force overtime against the Nashville Predators on Tuesday night, but ultimately dropped a 3-2 decision despite their valiant effort.
While some will be quick to focus on and view the result as a disappointment, the reality is that Tampa Bay has a lot to like about what went on at Bridgestone Arena. The Bolts were able to keep pace with and then create a possession advantage for themselves against one of the best teams in the league:
5v5 Corsi chart for TB vs. Preds courtesy of @HockeyStatsCa. Fantastic third period against a really good team. pic.twitter.com/EraknrvEca
— Michael Stuart (@hockeybuzzstu) February 11, 2015If the Lightning play like that, they win 9.9 times out of 10. Nothing to be ashamed of there.
— Mike Corcoran (@MikeCorcoranNHL) February 11, 2015Looking at the boxscore, one might get the idea that Tuesday’s game was boring to watch. Scoreless first period. Nashville scored two. Tampa scored two. Nashville scored in overtime. Good night.
That wasn’t the case at all.
Starting early on, it was hard not to get the feeling that viewers were in for a treat. Perhaps the most entertaining moment of that scoreless first period came when Andrei Vasilevskiy absolutely robbed Mike Ribeiro with about 5:20 left. Words can’t do the play justice. Take a look for yourself:
GIF: Vasilevskiy save pic.twitter.com/rD7uI9Vs9k
— Steph (@myregularface) February 11, 2015GIF: Another angle of Vasilevskiy save pic.twitter.com/UBl07gTTD3
— Steph (@myregularface) February 11, 2015The Predators finally broke through 8:31 into the second period when Seth Jones fired his sixth of the season over the shoulder of the Lightning’s Russian tender. Taylor Beck followed that up with his fifth of the season at 12:47 to give Nashville a 2-0 lead through two periods of play.
Being down 2-0 against such a great team and a Vezina-caliber goaltender with only one period left to play is an unenviable thing. You could forgive people (*cough* this blogger *cough*) for thinking that the Bolts were done like dinner. Not even in my wildest dreams was the team able to force overtime and salvage a single point. This stat didn’t help:
Nashville when leading after two periods, 19-1-3 #BecauseItWillComeUp
— Erik Erlendsson (@erlendssonTBO) February 11, 2015That aforementioned possession chart shows that the Lightning really stepped on the gas in the third period. I don’t know what Jon Cooper said in the locker room between periods. I don’t even know that he had to say anything. This team knows what it’s capable of, and it showed in that final stanza.
Tampa’s scoring party got started just 1:20 into the third when Brett Connolly scored his 10th of the season. Following up on a Valtteri Filppula miss, Connolly was able to pop the puck past Rinne to hit double digits for the first time in his young career. Anyone who doesn’t believe that he is an everyday NHL player is fooling him/herself. He drives possession, he scores at a great clip, and he fits in anywhere up and down the lineup. Teams need players like Connolly to win; on Tuesday he did his part to help the unsuccessful cause.
Nikita Kucherov turned that one-goal deficit into a tie game just over six minutes after Connolly scored. Kucherov’s 21st of the year, assisted by Tyler Johnson and Ondrej Palat, gave the Bolts everything they needed to push the game into overtime. Solid play by both goaltenders held things knotted in a 2-2 tie until the final buzzer rang.
Unfortunately the full comeback was not to be. After failing to score on a couple good looks, the Lightning’s aggressiveness caught up to them as James Neal scored for the Predators with only 33 seconds remaining in the extra frame. With three forwards and one defender out on the ice, Jon Cooper’s team got caught scrambling, which allowed Neal to skate into the zone and fling the puck between Vasilevskiy’s legs. It wasn’t a particularly pretty goal, but it counted just the same. The Predators had their victory, while the Bolts were left with only a single point.
Against a team as good as the Nashville Predators, the Lightning have to be happy with the way they responded. It would have been easy to roll over and curl up after falling behind 2-0, but that’s not in this group’s DNA. The single point earned is enough to keep the Lightning atop the Atlantic Division, and that’s probably all that matters right now. The rest is history.
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.