If the Tampa Bay Lightning fall short in their goal of winning the Atlantic Division, today is one of the games that they can circle as a reason. They were outworked by a team whose entire roster was rearranged 24 hours earlier as they dropped a 4-0 decision to the Boston Bruins. Old friend Cole Koepke was responsible for half of the damage as he scored twice in his old barn.
While Victor Hedman did take to the ice for warm-ups, he wasn’t able to suit up and is officially day-to-day. In his absence, J.J. Moser lined up with Darren Raddysh while Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak took the bulk of the ice time on defense. To their credit their defense was slightly better today than it was against Buffalo. They simply got outworked by the Bruins.
Boston came out and set the tone early as Coach Cooper said after the game,
“You watch the first six minutes of that game you could tell one team was playing a National Hockey League team and the other one wasn’t.”
The Lightning were able to keep Boston out of the back of the net in the first period with the biggest moment being Emil Lilleberg having to answer the bell (again) against Mark Kastelic in a fight. The two faced off (after Lilleberg had already fought Trent Frederic in the last game) with Kastelic getting an extra two minutes for unsportsmanlike conduct.
It took until the second period for the numbers to change on the scoreboard as Koepke opened the scoring when his shot trickled behind Andrei Vasilevskiy and was shot off his pads by Oliver Bjorkstrand, who was trying to clear it out of the crease, and into the net.
Cole Koepke [unassisted] 1-0 Bruins
The play started with a turnover in the Lightning zone by Nick Perbix. While it would be easy to pile on Perbix for the audacious giveaway, he wasn’t alone in his carelessness with the puck. The Lightning were dinged for 16 giveaways by the stat counters as they fumbled the puck away all game long. To Boston’s credit, they were forcing the the fumbles and outworking the Lightning at just about every turn.
Kastelic made it 2-0 in the third period on a bit of a fluke goal. The Lightning cleared it along the boards to the neutral zone where Boston shot it back in. It ricocheted off of a player at the blue line (maybe in the Lightning zone) and right to Kastelic. He fired it on net and Vasilevskiy was a little nonchalant in covering his net, and his attempted swipe at the puck missed.
Mark Kastelic [Patrick Brown, Ian Mitchell] 2-0 Bruins
With more than six minutes left in the game, it was all but over. The Lightning, who finished with 26 shots on net, but just seven high-danger chances rarely threatened Jeremy Swayman in net. Bjorkstrand rang one off of the post at one point and Brandon Hagel had a couple of good looks, but no real sustained pressure.
Nikita Zadorov made it 3-0 with an empty net goal as Coach Cooper was his usual aggressive self with pulling the goaltender.
Nikita Zadorov [John Beecher]
No highlights for empty net goals.
Koepke finished off the scoring with his second of the night as he snapped home a nice feed from David Pastrnak. Vasilevskiy never thought Pasta would dish the puck off and wasn’t able to get over in time to stop Koepke’s one-timer.
Cole Koepke [David Pastrnak, Casey Mittelstadt] 4-0 Bruins
The home-stand ends on a rather sour note, so perhaps a road trip is exactly what the Lightning need. It’ll give them a chance to clear their heads and focus on getting their game back together. With the Panthers defeating the Sabres, the Lightning drop the chance to keep pace with the division leaders. Getting back on track sooner rather than later will keep them in the race for the top.
