Perhaps the Tampa Bay Lightning should petition the NHL to play the rest of their season in the friendly confines of Amalie Arena. Chances are that request would be denied, but it’s worth a shot. The Lightning fell to 3-4 on the road after a 7-4 loss to the Winnipeg Jets on Sunday. While the record isn’t horrible, their inability to keep the puck out of the net continues to haunt them as they now have allowed five or more goals in five of their seven road games.
Oh, and Brayden Point left the game early with an injury. So, yeah. Awesome.
To their credit, they did start off with a solid game plan, building a 2-0 lead in the first eight minutes of the game. First it was Brandon Hagel jamming home a puck with an absolute Malfunction Junction car wreck in Connor Hellebuyck’s crease. Brandon Hagel (unassisted) 1-0 Lightning
The Jets challenged the play, but it stood. Who really knows what goaltender interference is, right? The Lightning took advantage of the delay-of-game penalty that followed the unsuccessful challenge. Brayden Point was in the slot and Nikita Kucherov feathered a subtle little pass to him that Point ripped home for his 8th goal of the season. Brayden Point (Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman) Power Play, 2-0 Lightning
Things would take a turn after that.
Look at how those shot attempts numbers switch directions after the second Lightning goal.
“Then there’s times that you’re playing pretty well and you make a mistake and they always end up in the net,” is how Coach Cooper summed it up after the game. “For the most part we’re playing okay. We just made some really tough errors, a couple on some face-offs, and one really reliable player (Ryan McDonagh) mishandles a puck, and they end up in our net.”
As one would expect with the way Winnipeg is playing the shots translated to goals. As in three in a row. First it was the Russian Bieber himself, Vlad Namestnikov who scored a few minutes after Point’s goal to get Winnipeg back within one.
Then Logan Stanley and Mark Scheifele would score within two minutes of each other in the second period, and just like that the Lightning lead evaporated. To their credit they bounced back as MItchell Chaffee scored his fourth of the year as he wired one past Hellebuyck. Mitchell Chaffee (Jake Guentzel, Nick Paul) 4-4
Despite being without their top center in Point, who left in the first period, and despite playing a less than squeaky clean defensive game, the Lightning went into the third period tied with the best team in the NHL. Unfortunately, they would not end the period tied as Winnipeg scored four times in the final frame.
First it was Alex Iafallo, who found himself all alone in front of Jonas Johansson during a power play. JJ Moser was a little late to recognize the danger, and by the time he did, Iafello had beat Johansson. Again, the Lightning battled back. This time it was a forecheck by Nikita Kucherov that surprised everyone with a well-timed poke check. Give credit to Hagel for busting in to take advantage of the weird bounce off of the end-boards. He flung it blindly to the front of the net where Vlad Namestnikov controlled it. The former Bolt didn’t see Kucherov cruising in and Kucherov casually poked it off of his friend’s stick and past Hellebuyck. Nikita Kucherov (unassisted) 4-4
We mentioned in the preview that the Jets have been getting a lot of offensive production from their defensemen this season. Cue up the game-winning goal from, you guessed it, a defenseman. Kyle Connor was able to cycle out from behind the net and fed it to Dylan Samberg who blasted it home. Johansson, who finished with 27 saves on 32 shots, never saw the puck as Mark Sceifele was in his face.
The Lightning have been better at defending the front of their net for most of the season, but it comes at the cost of leaving the points open for opposing defenders to get their shots off. In this case, there was no one out to challenge Samberg, who was able to pick his spot.
The Lightning pushed down the stretch, but two empty-net goals allowed the Jets to make the final score a little more exaggerated than it needed to be. With the loss, the Lightning drop to 1-2 on the road trip with one more to go in St. Louis on Tuesday.
There was no update on Point following the game (which is typical for the Lightning) nor was there any apparent play that led to the injury. With the Lightning traveling to St. Louis, there likely won’t be an update tomorrow unless it’s bad news.
