It took them more than 60 minutes, but the Tampa Bay Lightning managed to squeak by the Florida Panthers in their first game of the 2014-15 season. Thanks in part to a big night from Victor Hedman, the Bolts secured a 3-2 overtime victory. The win moves the team’s record to 1-0-0.
After battling their way through a scoreless first period, in which they really controlled the play, the Bolts lagged a little bit in the middle frame. It’s not that they were bad, but rather that their five-on-five game wasn’t generating much. That effort resulted in a goal against early, as Erik Gudbranson beat Ben Bishop just five minutes into the period to give the Panthers a 1-0 lead.
That deficit didn’t last long. Just more than two minutes after Gudbranson scored, Tyler Johnson notched his first of the year, a power-play goal. Valtteri Filppula and newcomer Anton Stralman were credited with the assists.
Just as they did on so many occasions in 2013-14, the Lightning flipped a switch to start the third period. After looking sluggish during a few shifts in the second frame, Tampa came to life during the final stanza.
With his team on a five-on-three advantage, Ryan Callahan played cleanup duty in Roberto Luongo’s crease and knocked home his first of the campaign. The assists on that goal, which can only be described as a Callahan Classic, were dished out to Valtteri Filppula and Victor Hedman.
Regrettably, the Callahan goal wasn’t enough to get the job done. About two minutes later, Jonathan Huberdeau pounced on a little gaffe from Radko Gudas and scored to knot things up at two. The crowd at the Amalie Arena was on edge once again.
The Lightning’s big break came right at the final period’s buzzer. Scottie Upshall took a goaltender interference penalty that carried over into the overtime frame. Tampa made no mistake.
Thanks to the new rule that forces teams to deal with a long change in overtime, Ben Bishop was able to send a great feed to Hedman, who proceeded to waltz into the Florida zone and fire a wrist shot past Luongo. It was an exciting ending for the fans in attendance, and a nice way to get the first win of the year out of the way.
Moving away from the boxscore-like recap, here are some observations.
1. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that Roberto Luongo was spectacular. The game’s score probably should have been quite lopsided, but Luongo made some phenomenal saves. Just as he did on so many occasions earlier in the century, Luongo was frustrating Lightning shooters all night long. I noted in my pre-game blog that he instantly makes the Panthers a competitive squad; nothing I saw on Thursday changed my mind.
2. Special teams hurt the Lightning last season. It’s only one game, but they were real good on Thursday. Three power-play goals powered the team to victory, and the penalty kill was perfect. Maybe that will give the guys some confidence as they move into the bulk of the schedule.
3. Speaking of special teams… there were lots of penalties called in this one. The boxscore shows a total of 15 (!) minor penalties. The Panthers seemed intent on playing aggressively and feistily. One thing that went uncalled, however, was Radko Gudas’s predatory hit on Scottie Upshall.
Video: Gudas catches Upshall with elbow to the head http://t.co/2nhoaCDvNv
— NBC ProHockeyTalk (@ProHockeyTalk) October 10, 20144. It’s an incredibly small sample size, but the Lightning’s even strength possession leaders (from hockeystats.ca) on the night were Tyler Johnson, Nikita Kucherov, Ondrej Palat, and Vladislav Namestnikov. There’s a lot of youth there. The future is incredibly bright. On the flip side, Brenden Morrow, Ryan Callahan, Brian Boyle, and Valtteri Filppula sat at the bottom of the list. Again, the small sample size renders these numbers fairly useless for the purposes of in-depth analysis.
5. It’s going to be a lot of fun watching Victor Hedman this season. The guy has Norris written all over him.
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It wasn’t a perfect performance from the Lightning, but it didn’t have to be. The fact of the matter is that the guys grinded out a victory. Asking for much more on opening night is a tough thing to do.
The team’s next game, to be played against the Ottawa Senators, will be held on Saturday night at Amalie Arena.
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.