It’s not very often that a shootout goes past the five round mark. Once the teams get past the initial three attempts, the pressure is ratcheted up on the goaltenders. They must go save for save against each other to keep it going. In this one particular game on March 27, 2014, the Lightning went 13 rounds in a shootout against the New York Islanders.
After sixty five minutes of play, the Lightning and Islanders were tied at 2-2 and were unable to settle the game in the overtime period. Ryan Callahan, in his 11th game with the Lightning, scored both goals. The first opened the scoring in the second period and the other tied the game in the third period.
The first three shooters for the Lightning were Ryan Malone, Mike Kostka, and Ondrej Palat. For the Islanders, it was Ryan Strome, Frans Nielsen, and Brock Nelson. Malone and Strome failed to score and were followed up by goals from the next four shooters. After that, it was one round at a time.
Ryan Callahan, Valtteri Filppula, and Victor Hedman all took turns and failed to score. Likewise, Josh Bailey, Cal Clutterbuck, and Matt Martin failed to score and finish the game. Steven Stamkos got his chance from Jon Cooper and pulled off a spin-o-rama move to score (which is no longer allowed). With an opportunity to finish off the game with a save, Ben Bishop failed to stop Colin McDonald and the shootout continued.
Young rookie Nikita Kucherov got the shoulder tap next for the Lightning followed by Teddy Purcell and Tyler Johnson with all three failing to score. For the Islanders, Bishop stopped Anders Lee, John Persson, and Thomas Hickey. Matt Carle was finally able to get another one past Evgeni Nabokov. Bishop once again could not come up with a save and Casey Cizikas forced the shootout to continue.
Alex Killorn and Mike Halmo traded unsuccessful attempts forcing Jon Cooper to go with the grey beard of the team, defenseman Sami Salo.
Salo, using his many years of experience picked up the puck at center ice, went into the zone, deked the puck, and took the back hand shot to beat Nabokov. Then it was up to Johan Sundstrom to try and tie it back up for the Islanders. He took the puck in and tried to go glove side on Bishop but couldn’t get it past his glove.
Because the Lightning went first, there was more pressure on Bishop through every round. Whenever the Lightning failed to score a goal, he had to make the save or the game was over. If the Lightning scored, he still had some breathing room if he didn’t make the save because the game would continue.
In total, Bishop had four opportunities to end the game with a save. On the other side of that though, he made eight saves to keep the shootout going.
Some additional notes from the shootout.
- Cal Clutterbuck was given a Game Misconduct during the shootout after jawing with the referees about Stamkos’ spin-a-rama goal.
- Mike Kostka made his shootout debut in the second round. It was one of two attempts he would make for the Lightning in 19 games going 1-for-2 for the only shootout attempts of his career.
- Ryan Strome made his shootout debut as well in the second round failing to score and is now 2-for-8 in his career after the 2017-18 season.
- Ondrej Palat scored his first and so far only shootout goal of his career in the third round.
- Colin McDonald took his first and only shootout attempt of his career at the age of 29, scoring on the attempt.
- Casey Cizikas made his first career shootout attempt, scoring on the attempt. He has only had one other shootout attempt since then and is 1-for-2 overall.
- Future Syracuse Crunch player Mike Halmo made his shootout debut in the 12th round and failed to score.
- Johan Sundstrom played a game low 7:59 before being asked to take the attempt for the Islanders in the 13th round.
- The Lightning had forwards J.T. Brown, B.J. Crombeen, and Nate Thompson and defensemen Eric Brewer and Radkos Gudas left to choose from if the shootout continued. Nate Thompson was the only player from that group who had taken a shootout attempt (0-for-1 in 2011-12) and none of them have taken a shootout attempt since this game.
- The Islanders had defensemen Matt Carkner, Kevin Czuczman, Calvin de Haan, Matt Donovan, and Travis Hamonic left to choose from. As of the end of the 2017-18 season, those five have never had a shootout attempt in their careers.
- Sami Salo would score his first and only shootout goal in the 13th round for the winner at 39 years old. He had previously only made two other attempts in his career, one of them coming earlier in the season for the Lightning./
