Zach Werenski’s wrist shot from the top of the slot in overtime ended a wild game between the Tampa Bay Lightning and Columbus Blue Jackets. It was the defenseman’s fifth point of the night and proved to be the difference in the 7-6 win for the home team. Eleven different players scored on a night that saw the Lightning blow a 3-0 lead while the Blue Jackets had one-goal leads evaporate within a minute on two separate occasions.
Neither coach will be happy with the defensive effort of either team as they watched a combined 152 shot attempts, 73 shots on goal, and 67 scoring chances. Jonas Johansson started for the Lightning and made 36 saves while allowing 7 goals. At the other end of the ice, Elvis Merzlikins allowed 3 goals on the first 7 shots he faced, but hung in there to pick up the win with 24 saves on 30 shots.
There were some positives for the Lightning, all pretty much on the offensive side of the ledger, as Cameron Atkinson scored his first goal as a member of the Lightning and Gage Goncalves recorded his first NHL point on a third-period assist. Speaking of assists, Nikita Kucherov had three of them as he crested the 900-point mark in his career. Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel, Mitchell Chaffee, Anthony Cirelli, and Conor Geekie all had goals for the Bolts.
Victor Hedman, who had an assist, was partially speechless when asked about the game after it, telling the reporters that it felt like they were “back on their heels” for most of the night. Which they were as Columbus racked up 47 scoring chances, 20 of which Natural Stat Trick considered dangerous. For comparison’s sake, the Lightning allowed a total of 38 scoring chances against combined in their recent wins against New Jersey and Pittsburgh.
Not that any credit should be handed out in a game where a team blows a three-goal lead (Columbus had a 6.3% win probability after Atkinson’s goal), but the Bolts did hang in enough to garner a point out of it, making it five-straight games with a point. They picked up three points on the two-game road trip, which is a positive as well. Twice they found themselves down a goal, but rallied back to even things up less than a minute after conceding the goal.
Those points ring hollow there really wasn’t much to brag about from their performance. They were beat constantly with long stretch passes, and their defense was picked apart all night long. The normally reliable duo of Erik Cernak and Ryan McDonagh had a particularly bad night as they were on the ice for 14 scoring chances against, including several breakaways, one that led to a goal by Dmitri Voronkov early in the second period that set off a chain of six goals being scored between the two teams over six minutes of game action.
The line of Gage Goncalves, Brayden Point, and Jake Guentzel, put together due to the absence of Nick Paul, struggled in particular as well as they were out-chanced 14-0 by their opponents. They, along with their teammates, struggled with the Columbus forecheck for most of the night.
The Bolts will have to have a short memory for this one as they have a day off before hosting the Dallas Stars, who are 12-6-0, on Saturday.
The Goals
Brayden Point (Nikita Kucherov, Jake Guentzel) Power Play, 1-0 Lightning
Brandon Hagel (Nikita Kucherov, Anthony Cirelli) 2-0 Lightning
Cameron Atkinson (Victor Hedman, Mitchell Chaffee) 3-0 Lightning
Sean Monahan (Dmitry Voronkov, Damon Severson) 3-1 Lightning
Dmitri Voronkov (Sean Monahan, Zach Werenski) 3-2 Lightning
Kent Johnson (Zach Werenski, Kirill Marchenko) Power Play, 3-3
Mitchell Chaffee (Conor Geekie) 4-3 Lightning
Zach Werenski (Kirill, Marchenko, Sean Monahan) 4-4
Yegor Chinakov (Cole Sillinger, Mathieu Olivier) 5-4 Blue Jackets
Anthony Cirelli (Brandon Hagel, Nikita Kucherov) 5-5
Kent Johnson (Zach Werenski, Sean Monahan) Short-handed, 6-5 Blue Jackets
Conor Geekie (Gage Goncalves, JJ Moser) Power Play, 6-6
Zach Werenski (Cole Sillinger, Ivan Provorov) 7-6 Blue Jackets
The Charts
The Lines
Expected lineup for #GoBolts tonight in Columbus: Hagel-Cirelli-Kucherov Guentzel-Point-Goncalves Atkinson-Geekie-Chaffee Girgensons-Glendening-Eyssimont Hedman-Moser McDonagh-Cernak Lilleberg-Perbix đ„ : Johansson
— Benjamin Pierce (@boltsben.bsky.social) November 21, 2024 at 6:42 PM
