Once again the Tampa Bay Lightning didn’t play horribly on the road against the Columbus Blue Jackets. Unfortunately, a bad start to the third period turned a 2-1 lead into an eventual 4-2 loss as Boone Jenner and Erik Gudbranson scored just under three minutes apart to lead the home team to victory. Steven Stamkos and Conor Sheary had the goals for the Lightning while Matt Tomkins stopped 24-of-27 stops in his return to Ohio (he played college hockey for Ohio State). Elvis Merzlikins stopped 27-of-29 for the win.
First Period:
So, it was a decent start for the Lightning as they worked the puck back to the point for shots from their defenders, but it wasn’t long that Matt Tomkins was called on to make a big stop as Johnny Gaudreau was able to wander around the open ice behind the Lightning defense.
From there on Columbus started dictating the play, aided by some turnovers and poor clearing attempts. The momentum was building and it felt like only a matter of time until the home team would hear the cannon road to celebrate a goal.
Eventually, the puck was worked around to Kirill Marchenko who rifled it past Tomkins’ glove hand to open the scoring. There was a heavy dose of similarity to the first period against Seattle where they were relying a bit too heavily on their goaltender to bail them out.
A nice shift by the Luke Glendening line didn’t generate a goal, but did keep Columbus in their own zone for a bit and allowed the Bolts to reset a bit. They upped their tempo a little and forced the Blue Jackets to think about defending their net instead of attacking the Lightning’s.
Anthony Cirelli had the first golden chance for the the visitors as he lead a 3-on-1 break. Zack Werenski defended him well and forced a shot that Merzlikins directed away. Later on the top line started buzzing and snapped a few shots into a crowd in front of the Columbus net but couldn’t corral the rebounds to put them into a net.
A late tripping penalty by Sean Kuraly led to a power play in the final minute of the period, but despite a lot of zone time, their best attempts were ripped wide or high. They had 4 shot attempts with one being blocked and two, both by Nikita Kucherov, missing the net. It would be a sign of things to come as they ended up 0-for-3 on the power play despite generating 7 shots with the extra skater.
Second Period
The rest of the power play was uneventful, but the Lightning stepped up their forechecking game and caused some issues for the Blue Jackets on their breakouts. Oddly enough, it was on their few offensive rushes that cost the home team the lead. A shot by Columbus caromed out in front of Tomkins, but Sheary did a good job of denying a second opportunity which allowed Stamkos to rush out of the zone.
He took it all the way into zone and spied Nick Paul at the far post. His pass was blocked by Jake Bean’s skate, but you don’t score over 500 goals in this league without a bit of luck and puck bounced into the back of the net to tie the game.
After a quick breather, the Stamkos line was back out there on the ice and Steven Stamkos’ incredible understanding of hockey geometry paid off again. The Captain fired a pass from the boards to the center of the ice. It hit another Columbus’ skate and while this one didn’t go directly into the net, it did go right to Conor Sheary who was just hanging out by the far post. He tapped it in for his first goal as a member of the Lightning.
The Bolts’ forecheck hummed along all period and Columbus was on the backfoot for most of the 20 minutes, as they only had two shots through the first 18 minutes. A late penalty by Calvin de Haan led to a few chances for the Blue Jackets, but the horn sounded before they could equalize things.
Third Period
Earlier in the week Coach Cooper talked about the Lightning playing well on the road, but giving away games with 10 minutes of bad play. Well, those 10 minutes came at the beginning of the final frame. Things started off well with the Lightning killing off the carryover penalty, and then another one shortly after.
In fact, they came pretty close to salting things away when Nick Paul stole a puck in front of Merzlikins and out-waited the goalie. He slid it under the pads, but the puck somehow slid through the crease and out the other side. That would be the highlight of the next five minutes or so.
Boone Jenner won a face-off to Tomkins’ right and the puck was worked back to Zack Werenski. His blast was coming in high, but Jenner got his stick on it and changed the flight path enough to elude the Lightning goaltender’s attempt to stop it. In a flash the game was tied.
A few minutes later.
Darren Raddysh lost his man along the boards in the Lightning zone that led to a Columbus scoring chance. The puck worked around behind Tomkins and as the play went to the point, the goaltender tried to clear his own crease with a shove to Emil Bemstrom. It worked, but Tomkins was a bit off balance as the shot came in from Eric Gudbranson and the goalie wasn’t able to get set in time to stop it.
There would be no comeback on this night. With the goaltender pulled Johnny Gaudreau snapped his goalless start to the season as he slid a puck into the empty net. A penalty to Victor Hedman with under a minute to go sealed things (but at least the Bolts got credit for another penalty killed).
After such a strong second period, it was a tremendously disheartening final frame as the Lightning were held to just 13 shot attempts and 5 shots on net, with the best chance coming while killing a penalty.
The Lines
The Goals
Kirill Marchenko (Dmitri Voronkov, Cole Sillinger) 1-0 Blue Jackets
Steven Stamkos (unassisted) 1-1
Conor Sheary (Steven Stamkos, Erik Cernak) 2-1 Lightning
Boone Jenner (Zach Werenski, Damon Severnson) 2-2
Eric Gudbranson (Emil Bemstrom, Adam Fantilli) 3-2 Blue Jackets
Johnny Gaudreau (Ivan Provolev) Empty Net, 4-2 Blue Jackets
