With a chance to leapfrog the Florida Panthers in the standings, the Tampa Bay Lightning fell behind early and were unable to bridge the gap before losing 3-2 on Wednesday night. With that, their three-game winning streak comes to an end. Nikita Kucherov recorded his 300th career goal while Mikey Eyssimont scored in the third to bring the game within a goal, but Sergei Bobrovsky, as he did for most of the night, stoned the Bolts the rest of the way. He finished the night with 27 saves on 29 shots while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 28 of 31.
Aaron Ekblad started the scoring in the first as he flicked a shot through traffic that eluded Vasilevskiy. For Ekblad it was his first goal of the season. From their the Lightning were pretty much chasing the game and despite their good looks, they couldn’t consistently beat Bobrovsky. Their job got much harder when Sam Reinhart finished off a pretty pass from Evan Rodrigues.
Heading into the third period, Coach Cooper felt that the team was a little flat and not as emotionally involved as they had been during their winning streak. In the final period they finally sparked to life thanks to, who else, Nikita Kucherov. Just 29 seconds into the frame Victor Hedman’s shot was blocked in front of the net, but Kucherov was there to put the rebound home for his 300th career goal.
A few minutes later the game turned. The Bolts were on the power play when the puck came out to the point. Aleksander Barkov was able to relieve Kucherov of the puck and work it up to Reinhart. One-on-one with Hedman, Reinhart was able to cut inside him and then lift the puck over Vasilevskiy to make it 3-1.
The breakdown hurt even more when Mikey Eyssimont was able to make it 3-2 when he followed up his own blocked shot to beat Bobrovsky for his 6th goal of the season, a new career high. The Bolts have a few days to get back into the groove as they are off until Saturday when they take on the New York Rangers followed by a New Year’s Eve tilt against the Montreal Canadiens on Sunday.
The Lines
The Goals
Aaron Ekblad (Gustav Forsling, Aleksander Barkov), 1-0 Panthers
Sam Reinhart (Evan Rodrigues, Aleksander Barkov), 2-0 Panthers
Nikita Kucherov (Victor Hedman, Nick Perbix) 2-1, Panthers
Sam Reinhart (Aleksander Barkov) Shorthanded, 3-1 Panthers
Mikey Eyssimount ( ), 3-2 Panthers
