Stop me if you’ve heard this one before: The Tampa Bay Lightning opened up a game with a 2-0 lead, only to allow three unanswered goals before ultimately losing a 4-3 decision. While the Lightning weren’t quite as bad tonight as they were against the Stars on Thursday, the story looked very similar in this game against the Carolina Hurricanes. It was another disappointing loss for Jon Cooper’s shorthanded lineup. Here are tonight’s thumbs:

Thumbs Down: Losing the Power Play Battle
This was supposed to be a battle between two power play units that sit right at the top of the league leaderboard, but it really didn’t look like one. While Carolina was able to convert on two of its six opportunities, the Bolts struggled to break into the zone and set up with any degree of regularity on their four chances. Simple math suggests those two power play goals were the difference in the game.

Thumbs Down: The Late-Game Officiating
After all the talk of officiating and “game management” following the Tim Peel scandal, you might have thought that the referees would be a little bit less obvious about it in the games immediately following. That didn’t seem to be the case here, as the officiating was wildly inconsistent and ultimately hurt Tampa Bay. Three straight penalties against them to start the third period – and an absence of calls on numerous obvious Carolina infractions – didn’t help the Lightning cause.

Thumbs Down: The Start to the Second Period
As much as it was frustrating, the officiating wasn’t the reason the Lightning lost this game – even if it didn’t exactly help. The real cause was once again a bit of sleepwalking in the second period, which left Carolina with numerous Grade-A scoring chances. There were countless times when Carolina skaters had the puck in prime scoring area, with seemingly every Bolts skater in another zip code. Andrei Vasilevskiy was too often the last and only line of defence. The five-on-five numbers suggest that the Lightning played Carolina evenly throughout the game, but the one-off mental lapses tell a story that those numbers don’t.

Thumbs Up: Ross Colton is a Player
Ross Colton continues to impress me in a major way basically every time he’s in the lineup, and tonight was no exception. His willingness to jump in on the forecheck without fear is such a benefit for the Lightning; the fact that he mixes it with above-average offensive instincts is just a bonus. Tonight, those skills were reflected by a quality assist on Pat Maroon’s fourth of the season, and five-on-five shot attempt and expected goal shares in the 58% range per Natural Stat Trick. As I referenced on Twitter, Colton appears to be next in a long line of Lightning prospects who come out of nowhere and do things really well at the NHL level. He’s been such a bonus for the team this year.

Thumbs Up: The Fourth Line Contributing Offence
As alluded to above, the fourth line had itself a night on the scoresheet. In addition to Maroon’s goal assisted by Colton, Mathieu Joseph scored a goal assisted by Maroon. It’s always nice to get those bonus tallies from deep in the lineup.

Thumbs Down: Relying on the Fourth Line to Contribute Offence
It’s rarely good when two-thirds of your offence comes from the fourth line, though.

Thumbs Up: Appreciation for Erik Cernak and Ryan McDonagh
Games like this one really reinforce the importance of players like Erik Cernak and Ryan McDonagh, who were both again out of the lineup. When fully healthy, the Lightning boast a blue line that would make any team envious; when one or two of those bodies go down with injury, the entire makeup of the team changes in a fairly significant way. The drop-off in quality is stunningly steep.

Heading into the tail end of the season, and with visions of another lengthy playoff run on their minds, I’m sure that the Lightning’s management group is brainstorming ways to add on the blue line despite their cap issues. This team is quite clearly a blue line injury away from being very beatable.

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The Lightning will try to build and hold a lead on Tuesday night against the Columbus Blue Jackets.

As always, thanks for reading.

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