For one of the few times this season, the Tampa Bay Lightning lost the special teams battle as they went 0-for-4 on the power play while allowing two power play goals against in a 5-1 loss to the Nashville Predators. Jonas Johansson who stopped 24-of-29 shots was outduled by Jusse Saros who was stellar as he turned aside 32-of-33 Lightning shots. The lone Bolt to beat him – Alex Barre-Boulet.
Barre-Boulet opened the scoring as he converted off of a nice play that was started when Brandon Hagel broke up a play in the defensive zone. Darren Raddysh sent Anthony Cirelli the other way with a nice breakout pass. Cirelli found Hagel in the slot who then kicked it out to Barre-Boulet at the wing for the one-timer goal. So it was a good start for the Bolts who were playing their second game in as many nights.
Unfortunately, after the goal, they started to cede territory to Nashville and it appeared the home team had tied it but the refs waved it off after ruling that Ryan O’Reilly had made contact with Johansson in the crease. The jeering from the crowd had barely died down when the Predators went on the power play. A bit of bad luck as Ryan McDonagh’s shot hit a pile of bodies in front of Johansson and dropped right to Jusso Parssinen’s stick. Johansson didn’t have to time to adjust and the puck was in the back of the net.
Still, it was a decent first period, especially for a Lightning team that hasn’t always had the best starts on the road. Unfortunately, they took another penalty early in the second and it ended with the same result – the puck in the back of the net. Nashville won a face-off cleanly and worked the puck around to Filip Forsberg who snapped a rocket past Johansson to make it 2-1.
Just 1:55 later, the lead was doubled. Again, the puck bounced Nashville’s way, but the Lightning also left Colton Scissons wide open in a dangerous area. Johansson made the stop and Scissons’ follow up hit Darren Raddysh’s stick and went right to McDonagh, who was open because Nikita Kucherov misread the play a bit. The ex-Bolt calmly backhanded it home like he was Wayne Gretzky or something.
Down two, the Lightning did start to play a little better, but even when they were in the Nashville zone it looked like they were stuck in neutral. Coach Cooper summed it up after the game,
“We were playing a decent road game and, then, they get two quick ones in the second and, once that happened, we didn’t punch back and that’s probably the most disappointing thing about the game. You’re not going to win every game but let’s give a push whether you are up or down or just protecting the lead or trying to come from behind especially in that case.”
In the third period, Nashville put on a clinic on how to play with the lead as they kept the Lightning out of the dangerous areas and pushed the play into the Tampa Bay zone. Another clean win on an offensive zone face-off set Roman Josi up for a point shot that found it’s through a rat’s nest of limbs and sticks to beat Johansson in the upper corner. There may have been more than 13 minutes to go in the game, but it was all but over at that point. Coach Cooper pulled Johansson with 8:55 to go and Yakov Trenin put it into the empty net.
The Lines
The Goals
Alex Barre-Boulet (Brandon Hagel, Anthony Cirelli) 1-0 Lightning
Jusso Parssinen (Philip Tomasino, Ryan McDonagh) Power Play, 1-1
Filip Forsberg (Roman Josi, Gus Nyquist) Power Play, 2-1 Predators
Ryan McDonagh (unassisted) 3-1 Predators
Roman Josi (Cole Smith) 4-1 Predators
