On a night where Dave Andreychuk and Brad Richards were honored for their recent enshrinement into the Tampa Bay Lightning Hall of Fame, the Bolts looked like a playoff team again with a dominating 7-0 win over the Philadelphia Flyers. Darren Raddysh had five assists and Victor Hedman had two goals while Andrei Vasilveky stopped 25 shots for his second shutout of the season.
The two players picked up at the trade deadline, Matt Dumba and Anthony Duclair, made their Lightning debuts and showed Bolts fans what they can expect as Duclar had a goal and an assist while Dumba had three shot attempts and a fight in twenty minutes of ice time. Nikita Kucherov ended the night with one assist to bring his total points on the season to 107, four behind Nathan MacKinnon.
First Period
So. How about a first period that had about everything in it? Four Lightning goals (two on the power play), a fight, a 10-minute misconduct, a first point for Anthony Duclair, and a coach kicked out of the game then refusing to leave the bench. That’s quite a first 20 minutes for the two teams.
The Bolts have been sluggish to start off their last two games, whether it was the talking to from the coach after their last game, the addition of two new players, or the energy in the building due to honoring Dave Andreychuk and Brad Richards the Lightning were flying around the ice.
Feeding off of the energy on the ice, it took them less than two minutes to put the puck in the back of the net. Nikita Kucherov had a clean entry into the zone and found Victor Hedman on the second wave. Hedman didn’t waste time in wristing a shot on goal that beat Sam Ersson on the stick side.
Victor Hedman (Nikita Kucherov, Darren Raddysh) 1-0 Bolts
While Duclair’s speed is his greatest asset, he’s not afraid to get in front of the net, and it as there that he helped the Lightning draw their first power play. Then, on the second power play unit, he picked up his first point as a member of the Lightning. Again, he was in front of the net and helped keep the puck alive for Nick Paul to slide home.
Nick Paul (Anthony Duclair, Darren Raddysh) Power Play, 2-0 Bolts
This is when things went a little sideways. Austin Watson and Nicolas Deslauries dropped the mitts off of the face-off. A few minutes later, Conor Sheary made it two games in a row with a goal when he controlled a loose puck and wristed a shot on net that beat Ersson on the glove side.
Conor Sheary (Darren Raddysh) 3-0 Bolts
With the Lightning still controlling play, Mikey Eyssimont tried to split the defense but was tripped up. The referee initially called the Lightning on Eyssimont, which would have been an egregious mistake. He corrected his mistake (it was Ronnie Attard with the infraction) and that seemed to draw the ire of John Tortorella.
The Flyers head coach was further irritated when Garnet Hathaway drew a misconduct for punching Anthony Cirelli in the shoulder during a stoppage in play.
It didn’t make it a five-on-three, but it kept the building buzzing and the first power play unit made the Flyers pay. Brayden Point from the slot on a rebound off of a Steven Stamkos shot made it 4-0.
Brayden Point (Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman) Power Play, 4-0 Bolts
Either Tortorella wanted to get off the bench and hang out with the members of the 2004 team in the suite, or he was really not happy with the last five minutes of play as he chastised the officials to the point that he was ejected. But he wasn’t in a hurry to leave the bench.
That’s a lot for ten minutes of play. Tempers cooled down over the last half of the period, and in fact the Flyers kind of had the better run of play, but the defense and Vasilevskiy kept them off of the board.
Second Period
As solid as the first period was, the second period was not. The Bolts surrendered 14 scoring chances with 4 of them of the high-danger variety. Yes, the 4-0 score had something to do with it, but the Flyers were the better team on the ice for most of the 20 minutes.
The new guy, Matt Dumba, who had two shots in just over eleven minutes of play through two periods, picked a fight with Sean Couturier that didn’t last very long. That did seem to wake the Bolts up a bit and a few minutes later the other new guy, Anthony Duclair, recorded his first goal as a member of the Lightning.
Steven Stamkos raced to a loose puck, but Marc Staal did a nice job of fending off his attempt. The Captain stayed with the play and after circling behind the goal line, fed a pass to Duclair who was camped out on the far post. The Duke wasn’t going to miss as he choked down on the stick and bunted it past Felix Sandstrom (who had replaced Ersson after the Point goal).
Anthony Duclair (Steven Stamkos) 5-0 Bolts
It was one of only four shots on goal for the Bolts (although Hedman and Dumba each hit a post), which, no matter what the score is, isn’t enough. Especially against a team that is skating just five defensemen. Which is the same number of defensemen that the Lightning finished the period with after Erik Cernak left with an apparent lower-body injury.
Third Period
The Lightning shook off their subpar second period with a strong final twenty minutes. They added two more goals (and Raddysh added two more assists) while frustrating the Flyers. The Bolts killed off two penalties and held Philadelphia to just one high-danger chance and six shots on goal to close out Vasilevskiy’s 25-save shutout.
Victor Hedman (Brayden Point, Darren Raddysh) 6-0 Bolts
Brandon Hagel (Darren Raddysh, Mikey Eyssimont) Power Play, 7-0
The Lightning have a few days off now before closing out their home stand with a game against the New York Rangers on Thursday. With the win, they leapfrog the Detroit Red Wings and reclaim the first wild card spot in the Eastern Conference.
