We’ll keep it short tonight. The Lightning won, Zemgus Girgensons scored, and the Lightning head into the 4 Nations Face-Off with a four-game winning streak (all against division foes) and a five-game point point streak. Andrei Vasilevskiy bailed them out again with another 32 saves, including a key stop on Josh Anderson’s penalty shot in the first period, in the Bolts 5-3 win.
While it wasn’t a carbon-copy of their win against Detroit on Saturday, there were a lot of similarities, namely they were opportunistic with their scoring (5 goals on 21 shots), some depth scoring as well as a goal from a blueliner, and they were on the wrong side of the possession game.
They were also without Nikita Kucherov, who, according to Coach Jon Cooper “tweaked” something against the Red Wings on Saturday. Kucherov did participate in warm-ups, but was a late scratch with Mitchell Chaffee replacing him in the line-up.
The Lightning won’t apologize for any of their wins, but it’s also not the blueprint they want to follow when they’re back on the ice. Hopefully, the break will give them a chance to refocus the defensive part of the game that has abandoned them a little over the last two games.
As for today. Nick Paul got the offense going with his 16th goal of the season as the Lightning capitalized on a Montreal turnover. Honestly, those were some silky moves down low by Paul.
Nick Paul (Brandon Hagel) 1-0 Lightning
The Lightning doubled their lead three-and-a-half minutes later when The Big Swede came crashing down the slot. Gage Goncalves slid the pass over to him, and to Victor Hedman’s credit, he actually took the shot instead of looking to make one more pass. For Goncalves, it was his fifth assist in his last six games.
Victor Hedman (Gage Goncalves, Anthony Cirelli) 2-0 Lightning
The two goals definitely came against the run of play as the Canadiens were throwing everything they could at the Lightning net, including the aforementioned penalty shot for Josh Anderson. Vasilevskiy was able to stop that one, but it was only a matter of time until Montreal would get on the board.
Darren Raddysh was in the box for high-sticking and Brandon Gallagher made him feel sadness as he wristed it past Vasilevskiy after a quick re-entry into the zone by Alex Newhook caught the Lightning at sixes and sevens.
Brandon Gallagher (Alex Newhook, Mike Matheson) Power Play, 2-1 Lightning
The Lightning survived the period with a one-goal lead despite getting out-chanced 22-5 and out shot 13-6. Not exactly pretty hockey. Intermissions can help, and the Lightning picked up their play a little to start the middle frame. They answered with a power play goal of their own to build the lead back up to two goals. Who else, but Brayden Point. He had been stuck on 12 power play goals for a bit, and this might have been his easiest.
Brayden Point (Jake Guentzel, Victor Hedman) Power Play, 3-1 Lightning
Modern goaltenders rely on pushing off of the post to propel themselves across the face of the goal on cross-ice passes like the one from Jake Guentzel. It works out great unless their skate/leg isn’t flush with the post. Jakub Dubas was slightly off in his skate placement, and flopped face-first onto the ice as he tried to get across. His night was done after just eight shots on goal.
It was the second night in a row the Lightning chased the starting goaltender, and the second night in a row they had a 4-1 lead. This time it came courtesy of the most unlikely source -Zemgus Girgensons. The Hammer was the recipient of some hard work from Mikey Eyssimont and a nice feed by Cameron Atkinson. Girgensons planted himself in front of the net and had a nice tap-in after Sam Montembeault overcomitted to Atkinson.
Zemgus Girgensons (Cameron Atkinson, Mikey Eyssimont) 4-1 Lightning
The Lightning would use all of that three-goal cushion as Montreal scored the next two. First it was Christan Dvorak who used Luke Glendening as a screen before wristing the shot inside the post and past Vasielvskiy.
Christian Dvorak (David Savard, Juraj Slafkovsky) 4-2 Lightning
The Canadiens, who probably viewed this as a must-win game if they wanted to stay in the race, put the pressure on in the third and cut the lead to just one goal with over ten minutes to go.
Brandon Gallagher (unassisted) 4-3 Lightning
It was a little more tense than it needed to be down the stretch, but Anthony Cirelli joined the 20-goal club with an empty-netter with 16 seconds to go to finally give the Lightning a little breathing room.
Anthony Cirelli (Jake Guentzel, Brandon Hagel) Empty Net, 5-3 Lightning
Thus ends the Lightning’s spring into the break as they picked up eight points over the last week to put them two points out of second place, and six points clear of the playoff cut line. Jake Guentzel, Brayden Point, Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel, and Victor Hedman will remain in Montreal and swap their Lightning uniforms for their country’s colors in the upcoming 4 Nations Face-Off while the rest of the team will get some needed time off as the Bolts are off until February 23rd.
Go out and take a break folks. Enjoy some non-hockey time (we know, it’s going to be weird).
