There are many ways to start a hockey game. High-sticking your opponent in the face to earn a double-minor 55 seconds into the game against a top-10 power play is not one that is recommended. Yet, that’s how the Tampa Bay Lightning kicked off their 4-2 win over the Vancouver Canucks on Sunday. Not only did they kill off the penalty to start the game (it helped that the player that ate the stick, Quinn Hughes, missed the entire four minutes while he was getting stitched up) they scored two power-play goals of their own to start their road trip off with a victory.
Special teams were key as the Bolts went 2-for-4 with the extra skater while they killed off a total of three penalties. Toss in some timely goaltending and that’s the recipe for a Lightning win. Andrei Vasilevskiy wasn’t swarmed with shots, but he was quietly effective in stopping 23-of-25 shots to pick up the win. Brayden Point continued his torrid start to December with his second four-point game in a row while Nikita Kucherov returned from a two-game absence with a three-point night.
It wasn’t all puppies and winning lottery tickets as the Lightning played most of the game with 11 forwards after Anthony Cirelli was folded over the boards on a hit by Noah Juulsen in the first period. By the end of the game, Erik Cernak was missing in action and Nick Paul limped off the ice late in the third period (he did return for a shift with a minute to go in the game). So, the whole “the Lightning are healthy!” vibe lasted roughly 11 minutes.
The Lightning didn’t let a little thing like injuries to important players deter them, nor did they get frustrated by Vancouver blocking 9 of their 18 first-period shot attempts (that’s half!). It wasn’t a great period to start the game by any stretch of the imagination, and their coach wasn’t happy with their play.
“Not pleased with our effort level, lost every battle. I think we were lucky down just 1-0.”
That Hughes kid, back on the ice with a bubble covering his injured face, was the reason they were down by a goal.
Quinn Hughes (Pius Suter) 1-0 Canucks
Look, we can nitpick about the lost face-off (it was a tough first two periods in the dots for the Lightning) but sometimes you just have to hand it to a really good player making a really good play. Hughes’ shot was a clever little unexpected backhand through traffic.
It’s been unusual for the Lightning to trail after the first period, but it’s even weirder for them to dominate a second period, especially on the road. Remember all of those shots that were blocked in the first period? Well, that didn’t happen in the second. The Lightning came out shooting (28 shot attempts) and scoring (2 goals). Of those 28 shot attempts, only 5 were blocked, and another 5 went wide.
The scoring started with, who else, Nikita Kucherov. However, it was Ryan McDonagh, who hasn’t exactly made a career out of being an offensive juggernaut, that set up the play. The big guy trucked in from the blue line and slid a subtle little pass over to Kucherov, who had a yawning net to fire the puck into for his 13th goal of the season.
Nikita Kucherov (Ryan McDonagh, Brayden Point) 1-1
Kucherov was back to his puck-dishing ways a mere 109 seconds later with the Lightning on the power play for the first time.
Brayden Point (Nikita Kucherov, Victor Hedman) Power Play, 2-1 Lightning
The goal featured two cross-ice passes before Point shot it past a leaping Brandon Hagel. In the middle frame, Vancouver’s defense was a little loose in their own zone, allowing those types of passes. When the Lightning have space, they are dangerous. If it wasn’t for the play of Kevin Lankinen in goals (28 saves on 31 shots on the night) it could have very easily been 4-1 by the end of the middle period as the Lightning racked up 15 scoring chances with 8 of those considered dangerous.
Not having one of their best defensive forwards for most of the game started to wear on the Bolts a bit and Vancouver pressured them until the defensive wall finally cracked. That being said, Tampa Bay did their best to help the Canucks out as the visitors struggled on several occasions to clear the puck. Vasilevskiy had to be on his game multiple times as clearing passes ended up on Vancouver sticks in dangerous areas.
It was a bad read by the normally reliable Darren Raddysh that led to the game-tying goal. Raddysh had Kiefer Sherwood covered in front of the net. However, he saw Tyler Myers start to cut behind the net with puck and left his coverage. J.J. Moser was also dropping down low on Myers while Nick Paul was covering, well, he was stuck in no-mans-land. That left Sherwood uncovered and he buried the slick pass from Myers.
Kiefer Sherwood (Tyler Myers, Aatu Raty) 2-2
After accumulating all of those shot attempts in the second period, the Lightning struggled to get any more on Lankinen. Their first shot on goal came almost halfway through the period, and their second almost four minutes after that. The good news was that things got better over the last five minutes, thanks to a mental mistake by the Canucks.
They forgot how to count and a sloppy line change led to a too-many men on the ice penalty. After spending most of the game looking like he was playing with someone else’s stick, Jake Guentzel scored a power play goal, kind of. Kucherov put a pass in front of the net that Guentzel swatted at with his hand. If it had gone directly in the net, the referee would have been correct when he waved it off. However, the puck went off of his hand, and onto Juulsen’s stick, and then into the net. A brief review determined it was a valid goal.
Jake Guentzel (Nikita Kucherov, Brayden Point) Power Play, 3-2 Lightning
With Lankinen on the bench the Lightning had a couple of chances at the empty net that didn’t go in. Finally, Brayden Point decided the best way to score was to handle it himself and he zoomed from his own zone all the way to the front of the Vancouver net before depositing it for his his 18th goal on the year and 4th point on the night.
Brayden Point (unassisted) Empty Net, 4-2 Lightning
Coach Cooper didn’t have an update on any of the injured players after the game (as usual). They should know more tomorrow as they get ready for their game against the Edmonton Oilers on Tuesday.
