The Tampa Bay Lightning fought a close battle with the Buffalo Sabres for almost 40 minutes on Wednesday night, but ultimately ran away with things before the final buzzer rang. The result was a 5-1 victory for Tampa, moving its record to 24-11-4.
Against a seriously inferior opponent, it took the Bolts a little while to get their legs going. The result, as mentioned, was a tight contest for a large stretch of the evening. Perhaps the best way to highlight the contrast between the Lightning’s early play and their play later in the game is to post this possession chart:
5v5 shot attempts (Corsi) chart for #TBvsBUF courtesy of @HockeyStatsCa. pic.twitter.com/SWJlvgGeWg
— Michael Stuart (@hockeybuzzstu) January 1, 2015Despite the slow start, Tampa opened the scoring when Matt Carle fired home his fourth goal of the season. Assisted by Ondrej Palat, who had a big night, Carle was able to wire the puck past Jhonas Enroth for the 1-0 score.
The Lightning held the lead until Tyler Ennis slapped home his ninth goal of the season, a power play goal, at 12:33. With Alex Killorn in the box for hooking, Ennis shot the puck past Andrei Vasilevskiy and into the cage. It deflected off Victor Hedman's stick on its way to the net. That was the young Russian goaltender’s only blemish on an otherwise perfect and quiet night. He was solid once again.
The game remained tied until the 19:02 mark of the second period when the Bolts responded with a power play goal of their own. Palat beat Enroth for his ninth of the campaign. The assists on the play were credited to Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov, unsurprisingly.
That Palat goal gave Tampa the lead it needed and wouldn’t relinquish. Just 5:20 into the third period, Brett Connolly scored the insurance marker for his club. On another incredibly strong night for Connolly, as evidenced by his team-leading Corsi of 89% at five-on-five, he scored his seventh goal of the year with help from Anton Stralman and Palat. It’s worth noting that, had he not missed time with injury, Connolly would be on pace for a 21+ goal season. He is also serving as one of the team’s leading possession drivers, despite the fact that most of his minutes have come in the bottom-six. His 2014-15 campaign has been a tremendous success thus far.
Nikita Kucherov scored just over three minutes after Connolly to extend the Tampa lead to 4-1. He was able to tap home a rebound for his 16th (!) tally of the season. He scored his 17th of the season with about two minutes left on the clock to extend his team’s lead to 5-1. The goal was assisted by his linemates, the other triplets, Palat and Johnson.
More impressive than the total itself is the fact that 14 of Kucherov’s goals have been scored at five-on-five. Per Raw Charge’s Kyle Alexander, and verified by yours truly, only Vladimir Tarasenko, Tyler Seguin, and Rick Nash have scored more in that category. He’s been an elite scorer for the Lightning this season.
The final buzzer rang with the scoreboard highlighting that 5-1 Lightning advantage. The Sabres, for their part, only managed to fire 11 pucks at Andrei Vasilevskiy all night long. It was a textbook performance for the Bolts, just as it should have been. Buffalo is really not very good.
In closing, I just want to take a moment to wish each and every single one of you all the best in 2015. It’s been a great year of writing here at HockeyBuzz, and I look forward to all that the future holds here. Thanks to Eklund, Eric, my fellow bloggers, the moderators, and especially you, the readers, for making 2014 such a smashing success at the site. Happy New Year!
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.