A true journeyman goaltender, Matt Tomkins’ path to the NHL went from Indianapolis to Rockford to Sweden to Tampa. On Tuesday night, 11 years after he was drafted by Chicago, he made 22 saves on 25 shots to pick up his first NHL victory. Another first-period offensive explosion propelled the Bolts to victory. Nikita Kucherov scored 22 seconds into the game and his tally was followed by ones from Nick Paul, Alex Barre-Boulet, and Mikey Eyssimont. Paul scored again in the third period on the power play.
First Period:
There were two ways this could go. The Lightning could be a despondent team, come out lethargic and allow the Canadiens to dictate the play or they could…oh dear, the Lightning have already scored. Straight into the zone and 22 seconds into the game, Nikita Kucherov has a goal. That’s probably the better way to start.
Of course, it’s only one goal, and so early, that gives the other team a lot of time to come back into the game. They gotta build on this….and they do. A nice keep at the blue line by Kucherov started the Lightning moving the puck around and a Steven Stamkos shot rebounded right to Nick Paul who tapped it in.
What about the power play? Even against a struggling team like the Canadiens, it’s important to make sure they don’t get into bad habits, especially with an early lead. Okay, Alex Barre-Boulet, I see you in your first game in Montreal. His attempted pass to Tanner Jeannot at the front of the crease slid under Jake Allen’s pads and in to make it 3-0 just 9:09 into the game.
So the first line and the second line have goals while a member of the fourth line scored on the power play. Can they go for the connect-four and have someone on the third line score as well? They sure can, Mikey Eyssimont, from a sharp angle, banked it off of Allen and in on the short side for his fourth goal of the season. It’s also his second goal in a row to chase a goaltender out of the net as Sammy Montembeault replaced Allen.
The offense was humming which something that Matt Tomkins was happy to see considering the Lightning had only scored four combined goals in his first start. Defensively, things were going smoothly as well. They killed off two penalties and only allowed three scoring chances at 5v5. Not only did they compete hard on the puck, they got in the shooting lanes and blocked 8 shots according to Natural Stat Trick.
Second Period:
Unlike last night, the Lightning didn’t cough up a couple of early goals to allow their opponent back into the game. It was another workman-like period where they kept leaning on the Canadiens in all three zones. While Montreal did have a little more zone time, they were aided by a couple of power plays that the Lightning killed off. A lot of the time was spent around the perimeter as well. The home team launched 22 total shots in the middle frame, but only 9 of them made it on net. Tomkins was strong when he needed to be, his best save was a right pad kick save on a rebound midway through the frame.
Offensively, the Lightning didn’t score, but had a few good looks. Eyssimont had a breakaway that was denied by Montembeault, and the relief goaltender breathed a sigh of relief to find the puck under his pads after Kucherov and Point worked a little magic to create a dangerous chance.
It was a physical period and Tanner Jeannot squared off with Arber Xhekaj in a short, but spirited bout. Jeannot led the way with 4 of the Lightning’s 12 hits through the first two frames. Overall, they just didn’t allow the Canadiens a lot of time or space with the puck.
There was a bit of down news as it was announced that Conor Sheary had sustained an upper-body injury and would not return to the game.
Third Period:
Its seems that no matter how well the Lightning play for 80 or 90% of the game, at some point some sort of contented haze will settle over them and they will lose whatever gumption they had earlier in the game. It’s not so much that they’re playing bad, they just don’t seem to have the extra edge, or gear, they need to close games out cleanly. Tonight it was the first seven minutes of the third period.
So Montreal got a few early power plays and showed a little life. One sequence forced Tomkins to make three tough saves in a row. As you can guess they eventually capitalized when Nick Suzuki one-timed a pass from Cole Caufield past Tomkins.
Not content to surrender just the one goal, they allowed another one 34 seconds later as Micheal Pezzetta cut the lead down to two goals. Would this be another third period meltdown? The two goals allowed pushed the season total to 19, tying them with Seattle and San Jose for the most allowed in the final frame. That’s not a stat that you want to be at the top of the column of.
The second goal did seem to wake them up a bit and there was a little more push to their game. A little more time was spent in the Montreal zone and they forced Montembeault to make a few more saves than he had to in the first half of the period.
With time winding down, Darren Raddysh drew a penalty in his own zone, that set up one more power play chance. Nick Paul made a nice keep at the blue line and drifted to the front of the net in time to knock a rebound shot from Kucherov with his glove and then swept it into a basically open net for his 7th goal of the season.
Christian Dvorak scored with 18 seconds left in the game on a beautiful shot off the rush, but that would be the end of the scoring (although it did push the Bolts to the top spot in goals allowed in the third period with 20). Still, a win is a win and two more points. Matt Tomkins won’t care about it as he celebrates his first NHL win after a long and winding road to the NHL.
Lines
Goals
Nikita Kucherov (Brandon Hagel, Brayden Point) 1-0 Lightning
Nick Paul (Steven Stamkos, Victor Hedman) 2-0 Lightning
Alex Barre-Boulet (Brandon Hagel, Mikhail Sergachev) Power Play, 3-0 Lightning
Mikey Eyssimont (Victor Hedman, Erik Cernak) 4-0 Lightning
Nick Suzuki (Cole Caufield, Sean Monahan) Power Play, 4-1 Lightning
Michael Pezzetta (Jake Evans) 4-2 Lightning
Nick Paul (Nikita Kucherov, Steven Stamkos) Power Play, 5-2 Lightning
Christian Dvorak (Jordan Harris, Justin Barron) 5-3 Lightning
