After dropping a 6-3 decision to the Pittsburgh Penguins on Friday night, the Tampa Bay Lightning needed to take advantage of a tired Ottawa Senators team on Sunday.
They did exactly that.
A stellar night from Tyler Johnson and Nikita Kucherov ultimately helped to propel the Bolts to a 4-2 victory, their 25th win of the season in their 41st game.
While they did quickly open up and maintain a fairly substantial possession advantage, as evidenced by the chart included below, Tampa fell behind early on in Sunday’s contest. On just their first shot of the hockey game, Ottawa was able to beat Ben Bishop. A collective ‘oh no’ was exclaimed by Bolts Nation.
The goal was Kyle Turris’s ninth of the 2014-15 campaign. Left alone in the slot thanks to a rare miscue by the Victor Hedman-Anton Stralman pairing, Turris was able to take a Clarke MacArthur feed and pop the puck past Bishop for the 1-0 Ottawa lead.
That lead held through the rest of the first period, but the momentum at even-strength swung heavily in the Lightning’s direction.
#TBvsOTT 5v5 shot attempts (Corsi) chart courtesy of @HockeyStatsCa. Didn't feel so lopsided to me. pic.twitter.com/CO8xKWE7fE
— Michael Stuart (@hockeybuzzstu) January 5, 2015Mark Stone answered right back for the Senators less than four minutes later with his ninth of the season. Turris and Erik Karlsson notched apples on the play that gave Ottawa the 2-1 lead. That was it for them however, as the Lightning turned their possession advantage into a scoreboard advantage as the game moved along.
Tyler Johnson got the party started with his first of two goals on the night at 16:08 of the middle frame. A power play goal assisted beautifully by Nikita Kucherov and Anton Stralman, Johnson’s 14th of the season gave the Lightning the leg up they needed.
The backbreaking goal came only seconds later when Stamkos capped off a great individual effort with his 21st of the year. Alex Killorn and Victor Hedman were credited with assists, but it was all Stamkos on the play. He circled the net while being hounded by Ottawa’s Turris. He fooled Robin Lehner. He sent the puck into the cage. For most of the evening, and on that shift especially, Stamkos looked fantastic.
With his assist on the play, Hedman continued his rise up the scoring race leaderboard. For a defenseman who missed significant time with injury, he sure is making his mark on things. There’s no reason to think that he can’t be part of the Norris Trophy conversation should he continue to put up numbers like he has been doing over the past few weeks.
Despite having played 15-17 fewer games than most others, @hed77 sits T27 in D scoring at the moment. #tblightning pic.twitter.com/btnPJuHv3o
— Michael Stuart (@hockeybuzzstu) January 5, 2015@hockeybuzzstu Steven Stamkos is the best 2C in the league
— Kyle Alexander (@kalexanderRC) January 5, 2015As 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.