On a night when the Tampa Bay Lightning iced names like Steven Stamkos and Victor Hedman, it was three former New York Rangers who powered the team to victory. Brian Boyle, Anton Stralman, and Ryan Callahan were all key contributors to the team’s 6-3 victory effort on Friday night against the Dallas Stars.
It didn’t take long for the former Rangers to make their mark on Friday’s contest. Just over eight minutes into the first period, Anton Stralman wristed home his 1st goal of the preseason. Assisted by Brian Boyle and Brett Connolly, Stralman’s marker gave the Bolts a 1-0 lead.
That lead was short-lived, however, as Dallas scored the game’s next two goals. Nicolas Blanchard beat Ben Bishop at the 11:36 mark of the opening frame, and Brendan Ranford tipped home his first of the preseason less than five minutes later.
The back-and-forth festivities weren’t done there. Only seconds after Ranford scored to make it 2-1 Dallas, Cody Kunyk, a college free agent signing, notched his first of the preseason with help from Victor Hedman and fellow youngster Henri Ikonen. That knotted things up at two.
From there, the Bolts went on a bit of a run.
Three unanswered goals in the second period gave the Lightning an insurmountable 5-2 lead. Anton Stralman scored his second of the game, an unassisted goal, just less than five minutes into the middle frame. Nikita Kucherov, who was buzzing on the team’s top line all night long, scored at the 8:34 mark with help from Steven Stamkos and Callahan. And Matthew Corrente capped things off with an out-of-the-box breakaway goal just past the second’s midway point.
That was all the Bolts would need to seal the deal on their second victory of the preseason. Ryan Callahan and Jason Spezza traded goals in the first half of the third period, but the tallies were of little consequence.
Moving away from the boxscore-like recap, I’ll just quickly make a few observations.
1) Anton Stralman and Victor Hedman were really quite dominant from a possession perspective. That shouldn’t surprise anyone. When you take two fantastic possession players and put them together, good things usually follow. Add to that the goals and assists they brought, and it's hard not to like what the 77-6 pairing did on Friday. Given this, it's no shock that the coaching staff seems to like the idea of having Hedman and Stralman together. What they do with the rest of the defense is still up in the air.
#tblightning coach Cooper liked the pairing of Hedman and Stralman, thought they were solid all night.
— Joe Smith (@TBTimes_JSmith) September 27, 2014Cooper on Callahan: "There's definitely not an on-off switch with Callahan. It's on." #TBLightning #TBLvsDAL
— Bryan Burns (@BBurnsNHL) September 27, 20143) For a guy who isn’t supposed to bring much offense, Brian Boyle made a number of adept plays and passes on his way to a two-assist night. I think Lightning fans have to be impressed with what they saw from him tonight. Hopefully that continues.
In other words, and to sum up, this shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Three stars, as chosen by the attending media:
1. Ryan Callahan, TBL
2. Anton Stralman, TBL
3. Brian Boyle, TBL
#TBLvsDAL
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) September 27, 2014As always, thanks for reading.