Costly mistakes doom Lightning in 4-2 loss at Vancouver

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
December 16, 2016

The heat turned up on the Lightning once again on Friday.

After a one-night reprieve following a victory in Calgary in the previous game, Tampa Bay came right back down to reality, falling 4-2 to the Vancouver Canucks at Rogers Arena

The Lightning fell to 15-14-2 on the season and have just two victories in the past 10 games.

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Andrei Vasilevskiy finished with 20 saves in the loss. Victor Hedman and Cory Conacher scored for the Lightning, who flew to Edmonton after the game for a Saturday night meeting with the Oilers.

But if the Lightning make some of the same mistakes made against the Canucks on Friday, it could be a long flight back home after the game.

When a team is struggling, the mistakes get magnified and become difficult to overcome.

“We can’t sit here and say we didn’t play well. They had 10 scoring chances the whole game,” Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “They score three goals. You can’t ask our team to do any better than that. Any NHL team will tell you, you give up 10 scoring chances, you’ve got a really good chance to win the hockey game. We’re playing pretty well defensively, a couple breaks here. Unfortunately, some of these turnovers are ending up in the back of our net. In the end, it’s a tough game not to get points out of, that’s for sure.”

Tampa Bay seemed set to turn fortunes around when an early Vancouver power play goal was taken off the board after the Lightning challenged for offside on the zone entry prior to the goal. The review showed that Bo Horvat (remember that name) was clearly in the zone ahead of the play, giving Tampa Bay a successful challenge for the first time since opening night against Detroit.

Hedman would then score his sixth goal of the season, making a backdoor cut down the left side and converting a pass from Valtteri Filppula to beat Ryan Miller at 6:31 of the first period.

But in the second period, cracks started to show in the Lightning’s game. Turnovers, sloppy play with the puck and goaltending errors started to erode the solid start to the game.

It started early in the middle frame where Slater Koekkoek had to chase a puck back in to his own end and tried to skate the puck out, but ran in to trouble and tried to chip the puck off the boards, which led to a turnover to Loui Eriksson who got the puck to Markus Granlund, who put a backhander pass from his knees to find Brandon Sutter in the slot for a quick shot that tucked under the arm of Vasilevskiy, a shot he probably should have been able to stop. Instead the puck ended up in the net to tie the game.

A blown coverage led to Vancouver’s second goal when both Vladislav Namestnikov and Brayden Point moved up to cover the point shot, which left Lucas Sbisa wide open to pop in a rebound from Alex Burrows at 13:25 of the second period. Namestnikov slammed his stick to the ice in frustration for the blown defensive assignment.

“I thought the first period was a good period. We played well. We played within our structure,” defenseman Anton Stralman said. “And then the second period I thought we stopped doing the right things. We took the easy way out a little bit, and they hurt us.”

The Lightning recovered, however, to tie the score on Conacher’s power play goal at 3:53 of the third period, taking a pass from Jonathan Drouin and patiently waiting to pick the top far corner for his first NHL goal since Oct. 11, 2014, while he was a member of the New York Islanders.

“It’s nice to get that first one,” Conacher said. “It would have been nicer if we got the win out of it, but hopefully I can build off that and it’s a quick turnaround for tomorrow’s game. Hopefully I can build off that and play well tomorrow and hopefully we can win tomorrow.”

That was short lived, however, as the Canucks went on the power play at 6:08, courtesy of a holding call on Alex Killorn in the offensive zone. Then, another bad break cost the Lightning as Granlund’s attempted dump-in around the boards hit Eriksson at the blue line and redirected on goal, catching Vasilevskiy off guard. Though the goaltender made the stop, he put the rebound right in to the slot where a wide open Horvat (told you to remember that name) who quickly snapped a shot past Vasilevskiy at 7:46.

“Actually, it was a nice save Vasy made just to keep it from going in the net,” Cooper said. “It goes right to their guy. It looked like it was a rolling puck. He puts it – it was an unreal shot by him – but he was Johnny on the spot on a fluky play. That was the difference. Too bad.”

Burrows would add an empty net goal in the final minute for the final margin of victory.

“It’s too bad because it was a pretty solid effort by a depleted group,” Cooper said. “You feel for the guys. It’s a self-inflicted loss is what it is. Bad turnovers end up in our net and a marginal call at best (on Killorn), a penalty 200 feet from our net and they just get an unreal break. It’s tough to fault the guys on their effort. The Canucks got the breaks and we didn’t.”

Postgame notes: Before the game, former Lightning D Mattias Ohlund was inducted in to the Canucks Ring of Honour. Lightning D Victor Hedman, who was an understudy to Ohlund his first two seasons in Tampa Bay, took part in the ceremonial faceoff. … RW Nikita Kucherov (lower body) and LW Ondrej Palat (lower body) both missed the game and are considered doubtful for Saturday’s game in Edmonton. … RW Ryan Callahan took part in the morning skate, including taking line rushes, but did not play. … Tampa Bay fell to 1-6 against Western Conference opponents this season. … The Lightning fell to 9-1 this season when leading after the first period and 10-2 when scoring the first goal. … Tampa Bay is 1-1-1 in the second half of back-to-back games this season. … RW Erik Condra was recalled Friday morning while D Luke Witkowski was returned to Syracuse, where he played for the Crunch in a shootout loss at Hartford. … C Valtteri Filppula extended his scoring streak to four games.

My three stars:

1. Canucks C Bo Horvat– Winning goal, assist, plus-2

2. Lightning D Victor Hedman – Goal, six shots on goal, 22:44 of ice time

3. Canucks C Brandon Sutter – Goal, 13-for-18 on faceoffs

Game highlights

Jon Cooper postgame comments

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