Tampa Bay Lightning suffer bye-week blues, like many teams before

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
February 18, 2017

The bye week this season has not been kind to teams.

The new wrinkle in the season, which mandates a five-day break for all teams at one point in the season, has seen teams emerge from the break looking like they were skating on the same sand they spent time sun bathing in the previous few days as just three teams – Toronto, Pittsburgh and Arizona – had won in their first game back. The other 12 lost, nine of them in regulation.

The Lightning looked primed to buck that trend, heading to Dallas on Saturday for the first game in a week and looking to build off momentum built before the break.

But despite putting forth a strong effort worthy of a victory, Tampa Bay became yet another casualty of the bye-week blues, falling in overtime 4-3 to the Dallas Stars.

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While not an ideal outcome for a team trying desperately to stay in the playoff conversation, Tampa Bay has picked up at least as point in a season best five consecutive games (3-0-2). The Lightning remain in 14th place in the Eastern Conference standings with 25 games remaining in the season.

To get out of that position, Tampa Bay is going to have to keep its momentum going, but at a higher pace than just getting a point. Two points has to be the rallying cry, moral victories – even those that come with a point gained in the standings – can’t be an accepted result.

Considering how the Lightning played against Dallas, that faint glowing light of possibility at the end of the tunnel is still there.

That’s because unlike most of the other teams returning from the bye week, the Lightning were in control throughout most of the game against the Stars and never trailed in the game.

”I’m not going to sit here and dwell on whether we should have won that game,’’ Lightning head coach Jon Cooper said. “I think if people were watching the game, they know what happened. We’ve pointed in five straight. At some point here, we’ve got to start being two instead of just one, but I can’t sit here and say the guys didn’t leave it all out there. You look at all these teams that are coming out of the break and not winning, and I thought we gave ourselves every chance to win the game. And, unfortunately, we didn’t.’’

Facing a swift-skating Stars squad, Tampa Bay overcame early sea legs and built a 2-0 lead on goals from Victor Hedman and Tyler Johnson in the opening 12 minutes. But Dallas would tie the game before the end of the first period as Antione Roussel scored twice, the first on a fortunate whack of a puck out of the air at 12:50, which came 51 seconds after Johnson’s goal. Roussel would tie the game with 1:10 left in the first period as he was open on the back door as the Lightning failed on a clearing attempt.

”You get the lead, you’ve got to hold onto it and, unfortunately, a pretty tough turnover there,’’ Cooper said. “It’s a game of inches, we couldn’t get it out and they end up capitalizing.’’

Hedman would put Tampa Bay back in front with his second of the game, and the second power play goal of the game for the Lightning, at 9:46 of the second period. That had things looking up for Tampa Bay as Dallas entered the night 0-20-2 on the season when training after two periods and had been outscored 71-45 in the third period.

But on a night Tampa Bay tried to reverse a trend, it was the Stars that turned things around, getting the tying goal from Roussel, who recorded his first career hat trick, 4:40 in to the final period. Then, despite being dominated in the overtime as the Lightning had three successive Grade A chances down low from Ondrej Palat, Alex Killorn and Brayden Point, Jamie Benn snapped off a wrist shot top shelf on the only shot in the extra session for Dallas to earn the second point, set up off a Valtteri Filppula turnover at the Dallas blue line.

Turnovers, a plague throughout most of the season, proved an issue again on Saturday.

“Overall, I thought we played a good game,” Johnson told NHL.com. “Having a two-goal lead and another one-goal lead, that’s unacceptable, but it’s all about turnovers. That’s how they got their goals. That’s how we knew they were going to play coming into it, that they would capitalize on that. They’re an offense that scores a lot of goals. Frankly, turnovers killed us.”

”In the end, we just did everything we could in overtime, and they got the one chance,’’ Cooper said. “It’s obviously got to be on one of the best players in the league’s stick, and he knows what to do with it and he scores. But, you know what, can’t go back now, just got to look ahead. Now it’s Colorado, and that’s where our focus is.”

If the momentum can’t be carried over coming out of Colorado, then that flickering light keeping hope alive might finally be snuffed out.

Postgame notes:. Tampa Bay recalled RW Cory Conacher from Syracuse on Saturday as LW Jonathan Drouin missed the morning skate due to illness. After Drouin was able to play, Conacher was scratched. … D Luke Witkowski was a healthy scratch. … C Tyler Johnson, who missed the previous two games, was back in the lineup and recorded his 200th career point. … D Victor Hedman recorded his third career mult-goal game. … F Brian Boyle skated in his 600th career NHL game. … Tampa Bay fell to 7-10-4 against Western Conference teams this season.

My three stars:
1.Stars RW Antoine Roussel – First career hat trick, six shots, 10 shot attempts, plus-2

2.Lightning D Victor Hedman – Two goals, assist, six shots, four blocked shots.

3.Lightning C Tyler Johnson – Goal, assist, five shots

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