The Tampa Bay Lightning were looking to claim a playoff spot and set the franchise record for wins as they took on the Nashville Predators tonight at Amalie Arena. Despite outshooting Nashville 30-19, Tampa Bay couldn’t solve goalie Pekka Rinne in the third period to finish off another comeback win.
The Bolts now head off on a five game road trip, starting in Detroit against the Red Wings on Saturday.
Although they carried the play right from puck drop, the Lightning were down 2-1 after the first period. The Predators scored two goals off of crazy deflections to take a 2-0 lead. The two goals were scored on Nashville’s first three shots.
At 3:28, on their first shot of the game, the Predators scored off an Anton Stralman turnover in the Bolts own end. Mike Ribeiro deflected a shot from the left circle past Ben Bishop for his 14th of the season, assisted by Roman Josi.
Just 40 seconds later, the Preds Paul Gaustad backhanded the puck out of the air and past Bishop for his fourth of the year, from Taylor Beck.
The Lightning got one back right before the intermission when the hot Vladislav Namestnikov scored on a wrap-around for his seventh goal of the season at 19:31, assisted by Mark Barberio and Andrej Sustr. Namestnikov has ten points in six games since his recall from the Crunch.
The Lightning outshot the Predators 12-4 in the first period.
Nashville went back up by a pair as Mike Santorelli scored on is own rebound right after the Bolts killed off a Tyler Johnson double-minor penalty. Santorelli’s backhander was his 12th of the season and was assisted by Calle Jarnkrok and Viktor Stalberg at 6:47 of the second period..
Coach Jon Cooper yanked goalie Ben Bishop in favor of rookie Andrei Vasilevskiy after the Santorelli goal. Bishop was last pulled on February 12 in a loss to St. Louis.
Brian Boyle brought the Bolts to within one, beating Pekka Rinne short-side for his 15th at 13:19, assisted by J.T. Brown and Jonathan Drouin. The point was Brown’s fourth in three games.
The second period ended 3-2 in favor of the Predators. The Bolts outshot the Predators 9-7 in the period and did not allow a shot on goal in the final 11:05 of the period.
Despite the Lightning’s absolute domination of the third period, they couldn’t get one by Pekka Rinne. The Bolts outshot the Preds in the period 11-6 and 30-19 in the game.
The Bolts held Nashville to just two shots in the third period.
The Lightning power play was a dismal 0-5 in the game and Steven Stamkos pulled no punches describing how the team played with the man advantage:
“I’m pissed off about the effort on the power play. It’s pretty frustrating.. It was embarrassing,” said the captain.
The Lightning finished the the regular season with a 16-9-3 record versus the Western Conference.
Nikita Nesterov (healthy), Brenden Morrow (upper body) and Braydon Coburn (lower body) were the scratches.
The Lightning will visit the Detroit Red Wings Saturday afternoon at 2 PM, starting a five game road trip.
(Feature Photograph/Getty Images)
Follow me on Twitter @LightningShout and please “like” LightningShout on Facebook. You can email us at [email protected].
Add The Sports Daily to your Google News Feed!
