It’s a pretty familiar refrain at this point. The Tampa Bay Lightning play well for a vast portion of the game, but allow things to come undone in a short period of time. The result, a loss. That’s how it played out in St. Louis on Tuesday night as the Lightning allowed two goals in 19 seconds to the Blues on their way to their second straight shutout loss. Colton Parayko, Jordan Kyrou (x2), Jakub Vrana, and Kasperi Kapanen (empty net) scored for St. Louis as Jordan Binnington made 30 saves.
Jonas Johansson made 24 saves on the night, several of them of the acrobatic variety, but lost his fourth game in the row. Philippe Myers drew into the line-up in the place of Erik Cernak, who missed the game due to an upper-body injury suffered in the loss to Carolina. Not that it made a difference on the scoresheet, but Nikita Kucherov was back following his one game absence.
With Cernak out of the line-up, Coach Cooper paired up Victor Hedman and Nick Perbix, a combination that started the season, but struggled with a 4.1 GA/60. He also paired up Darren Raddysh and Mikhail Sergachev who boasted a robust 4.62 GA/60 heading into the game.
Honestly, the Lightning did a lot of things right in the game. Their forecheck was effective for long stretches and St. Louis had some issues getting the puck out of their own zone. Unfortunately, in the first period, one of the times they did get it out, it led to the game-opening goal as Colton Parayko converted off the rush with several Lightning players caught up ice.
Johansson kept them in the game after the goal, making several key stops. It seemed like that might have swung things in the Lightning’s favor as they came out in the second period and played well, generating 12 high-danger chances at 5v5. The problem was that they didn’t convert any of them. The best came on the power play when Steven Stamkos sent a pass to the back post where Brayden Point just couldn’t quite tuck it into the opening. Had that gone in, maybe we’re telling a different story.
Despite keeping the play in the St. Louis end for much of the period, it was a 30-second stretch with about four minutes to go in the middle frame that derailed everything. First, the entire Lightning squad lost sight of Jordan Kyrou along the boards. He was able to slide into the zone uncovered and he beat Johansson on the backend. Nineteen seconds (NINETEEN!) later Torey Krug looked off Johansson and slid a perfect no-look pass to Jakub Vrana. Johansson was frozen on the pass and not able to get over in time.
For all intents and purposes, the game was over. There were chances to get back into things, but St. Louis bled out the clock fairly well. With just over 6 minutes to go, Coach Cooper pulled Johansson and it didn’t take long for the Blues to capitalize. Granted their first shot into the empty net was waved off (it was never explained why, but I’m guessing that a shot from Victor Hedman hit the netting behind the Blues’ net and it took the officials a few seconds to stop the play). However, they didn’t let that deter them and Kasperi Kapanen put it in the net shortly after.
Jordan Kyrou added his second of the night when the Lightning turned the puck over in the offensive zone and couldn’t get back to defend the two-on-one. So add two more goals to their third period total.
Even though they didn’t win, or even score, there were a few more positives to pull out of this game than the loss to Carolina. The Lightning were above water on scoring chances (54.29%) and expected goal share (60%), something that hasn’t been the case in some of their losses this year.
They’ll head to Chicago on Thursday to take on the Blackhawks and hopefully exact a little revenge for the loss last week.
The Goals
Colton Parayko (Robert Thomas, Pavel Buchnevich) 1-0 Blues
Jordan Kyrou (Torey Krug, Justin Faulk) 2-0 Blues
Jakub Vrana (Torey Krug, Kevin Hayes) 3-0 Blues
Kasperi Kapanen (Pavel Buchnevich) Empty Net, 4-0 Blues
Jordan Kyrou (Brayden Schenn) 5-0 Blues
