The Tampa Bay Lightning dropped a 4-3 shootout decision to the Ottawa Senators on Monday night, extending their point streak to nine games. Despite being thoroughly outplayed by the Senators at five-on-five for the majority of the evening, the Bolts were able to salvage a point by making hay on their special teams. The loser point moves Tampa’s record to 39-24-9, which is still good enough for second place in the Atlantic Division.
Erik Karlsson got the scoring party started just less than four minutes into the game when he snapped home his 20th goal of the season right from the slot. After some *unique* defensive coverage from the Lightning, Karlsson took a Colin Greening pass and sent the puck past Ben Bishop for the 1-0 Ottawa lead.
That lead didn’t last long, however, as Nikita Kucherov scored his ninth of the season to knot things up at one about a minute later. In his return to the lineup after sitting as a healthy scratch for a handful of games, Kucherov took a nice feed from Tyler Johnson and put the puck past Robin Lehner for the Lightning’s first goal of the game. Credit the young Russian for reading the play and taking advantage, but Chris Phillips and Cody Ceci didn’t exactly defend the rush with textbook accuracy.
Ottawa regained the lead at the 8:12 mark of the second period courtesy of a Jason Spezza goal, assisted by Milan Michalek and Karlsson. Bishop made the initial save, but was then left helpless in the crease as Spezza popped the puck into the gaping cage. The Senators then added insult to injury when Kyle Turris scored his 22nd of the year seconds later to give them a 3-1 lead. Turris, one of Ottawa’s most dangerous players, was left all alone in front to puck the puck past the Tampa goaltender. The play was a microcosm of the Bolts’ defensive struggles all evening.
Just as it looked like all hope was lost, the officials decided to give the Lightning a string of power plays that would come back to haunt the Senators. Victor Hedman got the comeback started just past the midway point of the middle stanza when he slapped home his 12th goal of the season, with assists credited to Valtteri Filppula and Ondrej Palat. With Ryan Callahan in front screening, Lehner really had no chance to stop such a great shot.
With the score at 3-2, the Lightning had life. They turned that life into a tie game just less than six minutes into the third when Steven Stamkos scored his 21st of the year and 7th in 10 games since returning from a broken leg. After Palat and Callahan did some good work in front of the crease, which earned them each an assist, Stamkos batted the puck right out of midair and past Lehner with incredible precision. The officials initially waived the goal off, contrary to what they said publicly, but the goal counted.
"Original call on the ice was good goal." pic.twitter.com/kRLk8G4POG
— Travis Yost (@TravisHeHateMe) March 25, 2014Both Lehner and Bishop were able to shut the door for the remainder of the third, and so the game moved into the overtime period. The Lightning had a late third period power play carry over into the extra frame, which gave them a glorious opportunity to secure the evening’s second point. They couldn’t. It came back to bite them. Lehner remained perfect through overtime and the shootout, while Bishop was beaten by Spezza in the skills competition. Just like that it was over.
I’m not going to sit here and pretend that the Lightning deserved a better fate on Monday. They didn’t. In fact, you could easily make the argument that the Bolts were lucky to escape the Forum with one point in hand. Give props to the Senators for making the Lightning look, well, very average. The Bolts will need to be a hell of a lot better if they want to hold on to that second spot in the Atlantic.
As always, thanks for reading.