The Boston Bruins beat the Tampa Bay Lightning 1-0 in overtime Tuesday night in Tampa.
After an abysmal effort just last night in Philadelphia that saw the Lightning notch a mere 18 shots on goal, tonight it was dual shutouts in regulation, followed by an abrupt ending in overtime as Tampa Bay’s Ben Bishop stopped 32 shots and Boston’s Jonas Gustavsson fought off 42.
“We weren’t too happy about our performance last night and you know tonight, it was two great goaltenders, two good teams going at it in a low-scoring game. They obviously got the extra point but we will take a lot of positives out of this game and keep looking forward.” – Victor Hedman
The first period was pretty even with the Bruins holding the slight edge of 11 to eight in shots taken. The Lightning carried play in the second, getting a number of good chances, including lots of rebounds, but couldn’t cash in. They outshot the Bruins in the middle frame 19-11. In the first half of the period, the Lightning were downright dominant, holding Boston without a shot for first nine minutes, during which the Bolts got off nine of their own. The Bruins rallied from there, outshooting the Lightning the rest of the way 10-6.
“Yeah, the pace even to start was fast. Felt a little bit like a playoff game and especially with two teams coming off back-to-backs. I mean, that was a quick pace, or felt like it anyway. You could tell it’s (the playoff mindset) building a little bit. Two teams that want to compete and have the same goals in mind. It’s a division game so the effort was there, the compete was there, but unfortunately we didn’t get the two points. But there were some good things to take away from it.” – Brian Boyle
Just ten seconds into the overtime, the Bruins won the opening draw and Brad Marchand scored on assists from Patrice Bergeron and Torey Krug.
But the story of the game was the spectacular goaltending by both Bishop and Gustavsson who held off shots from everywhere on the ice all night long.
“(Gustavsson) was perfect. It’s tough to beat that. He made some big saves on redirects. I think there were three or four posts we hit, but he covers a lot of net and I give him a lot of credit. He was really good for them.” – Boyle
The win gives Boston a tie for first place in the Atlantic Division with the Lightning, with Tampa Bay holding the edge in tiebreakers.
The Lightning will be in action again Friday night when they host the Philadelphia Flyers.
Game notes:
- The Lightning fall to 10-5 in overtime this season and 21-9-4 in one-goal games.
- This is the last of four regular season games between Boston and Tampa Bay with the teams splitting the series.
- Boston’s John-Michael Liles shouldn’t be surprised if his phone rings early tomorrow morning, after delivering an elbow to the head of Nikita Kucherov during the first period. Kucherov needed assistance getting to his feet but remained in the game. There was no penalty called on the play.
- Defenseman Andrej Sustr returned to the lineup after missing the last three games. He logged 19:50 of ice time and blocked a shot.
- The Lightning honored Merry Lynn Morris as the 34th Lightning Community Hero of the 2015-16 season during the first period of tonight’s game. Morris, who received a $50,000 donation from the Lightning Foundation and the Lightning Community Heroes program, will donate the money to the VSA, USF Foundation and Revolutions Dance. Tonight’s community hero has opened the world of dance to people with disabilities. In 1987, Morris’ father suffered a severe brain injury in a head-on collision. After, she became a full-time caregiver that used the arts to improve his quality of life. While serving as a board member at VSA Florida, she coordinated A New Definition of Dance, a program featuring a group of dancers with disabilities from all over the world. These series of performances aimed to eliminate negative stereotypes, introduce students with disabilities to new methods of communication and self-expression and to provide career development for artists with disabilities. Morris also leads the Arts in Health Program for USF students to enhance diagnostic and observation skills to medical students through art. In addition, she has served in an active volunteer role for Revolutions Dance as a teacher and choreographer. Morris’ ambition is to make dance universally accessible and to ensure the general public that dancers can produce professional-level work regardless of their looks and abilities. Morris becomes the 213th Lightning Community Hero since Jeff and Penny Vinik introduced the program in 2011-12 with a $10 million, five-season commitment to the Tampa Bay community. Through this evening’s game, in total, the Lightning Foundation has granted $10.8 million to more than 300 different non-profits in the Greater Tampa Bay area.
