Tampa Bay Lightning get what they deserve in Boston

by Erik Erlendsson | @Erik_Erlendsson | Like us on Facebook
November 29, 2017

The legs feed the wolf.

The Tampa Bay Lightning, apparently, were not hungry enough on Wednesday because they had no legs in the second half of a back-to-back.

Despite a close score line in a 3-2 loss to the Boston Bruins, the Lightning were never really in danger of escaping the game with a positive result.

Tampa Bay got what it deserved.

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The Lightning were coming off a game on Tuesday facing a team that had not played since Sunday. And what happened in the first period is what you see on occasions when a tired team faces a rested team in the NHL – dominance by the rested team.

Boston was on top of every puck. Every time the Lightning managed to touch the puck, the Bruins were on top of the play. Tampa Bay passes were disrupted or off the mark.

Pressure in the offensive zone? Non-existent.

The Bruins completely controlled the game in all aspects and held a 2-0 lead through 20 minutes. It could have been – and should have been – much worse than that. The shots after the first period were 19-5 in favor of the Bruins. The shot attempts told the full story of how the first went as Boston had 35 attempts – 19 on net, nine that missed the net and seven were blocked. Tampa Bay had 16.

That’s the difference in this league when a team played the night before and has no legs playing against a team that’s rested. It’s not an excuse, but it is reality. And credit the Bruins for taking advantage of that, utilizing their speed, which looked more dramatic against a Tampa Bay team not using theirs.

”We have to understand we’re getting everybody’s best shot, especially when you haven’t played teams before,’’ head coach Jon Cooper said. “I would imagine when you’re playing a team that has the start we had, you’re going to get their best shot. The league’s way too good to, I don’t want to say we took it off, but we didn’t have near the desperation they had in the first period. We were a step behind, which was obvious.’’

The first period went so poorly that, for the first time this season, head coach Jon Cooper broke up the line combinations to start the second period. Tyler Johnson started the period on a line with Nikita Kucherov and Alex Killorn. Steven Stamkos played with Brayden Point and Ondrej Palat. Of course, the lines were very fluid for most of the remainder of the game as J.T. Brown, back in the lineup, played just five shifts in the final two periods.

The move kind of, sort of, maybe provided a little spark as the Lightning started to move their feet a little bit more. By the end of the first period, perhaps you might say they found their legs, even. But after falling behind 3-0 on a 4-on-4 goal from Torey Krug as the Lightning fell asleep in the defensive zone.

Andrej Sustr would pull Tampa Bay to within 3-1 with his first goal of the year to get Tampa Bay on the board at 10:53. The goal gave the Lightning life and against a goaltender in Tuukka Rask, who has looked shaky recently, the door was left open just enough the Lightning to have a chance in a game they probably didn’t deserve.

Johnson had a glorious chance late in the second, cutting to the net and putting a shot from in close off the far post that appeared to go in, but after review, hit the post and somehow managed to stay out as it cut across the goal line and avoid hitting Rask’s leg, coming out the other side. Johnson then had a similar chance, only this time he tried to go top shelf and hit Rask in the mask.

Then in the final minute, Nikita Kucherov had a sweeping one-timer chance that Rask stretched across to get his pad on to keep it a one-goal game.

It proved important as Stamkos finished off a wonderful passing play to easily one-time a pass from Kucherov on the power play 2:10 in to the third period to make the game interesting and give the Lightning a chance.

But as often is the case, it was too little, too late as the Lightning started the game too late and were unable to find the equalizing goal despite a 9-4 shot advantage in the third.

”It was unfortunate because it ended up costing us the game,’’ Cooper said of the first period. “But as the game slowly went on, we slowly tilted the ice. By the time we got to the third period, we were doing all the right things, all the things that had we done at the beginning of the game, not sitting here saying we would have won the game, but the score ended up 3-2 and probably wouldn’t have given up the chances we gave up, we probably would have got a couple more. Just a little bit of a lesson learned in this game.’’

Tampa Bay also wasted a 33-save performance from Andrei Vasilevskiy, who started on consecutive nights for the second time this season.

He gave the Lightning a chance, even holding the Bruins to just two goals in the first period, but in the end, Tampa Bay got exactly what it earned out of the game as well as the four-game road trip, which resulted in just two points.

”You have to learn from this experience,’’ Cooper said. “You go on a four-game road trip and get two points out of it, that’s not what we had planned and actually probably never thought that would happen. But it did. So now you have to look back and say, ‘Okay, why did it happen?’

Postgame notes: D Slater Koekkoek was a healthy scratch. … Tampa Bay could have F Chris DiDomenico available for Saturday’s game against San Jose after Julien BriseBois told the Syracuse Post Standard on Wednesday that he could not commit to DiDomenico being available for the Crunch game on Friday. … Sustr became the seventh different defensemen for the Lightning to score a goal this season. His first goal of the year came on his 27th birthday. … Tampa Bay fell to 1-3-1 in the second half of back-to-backs this season. … The Lightning are 3-12-1 in the past 16 regular season games in Boston. … .

My three stars:
1.Bruins D Charlie McAvoy – Teenage rookie had a goal, assist and a plus-2 in 28 minutes of ice time

2.Bruins C Patrice Bergeron – Plus-2 in nearly 23 minutes of ice time, won 16-of-28 faceoffs

3. Lightning G Andrei Vasilevskiy – Gave his team a chance with 33 saves

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