All the harbingers for a good game were there. Injuries were easing up as Jonathan Drouin and Jason Garrison were back, The team hadn’t played since Sunday, so they were good and rested. The opponent was the Vancouver Canucks, at 26 points, one of the worst teams in the league. The Canucks (4-8-1) were also one of the worst road teams in the NHL. Amalie Arena was ready. The Lightning fans were ready. The Tampa Bay Lightning team was…guys? Hello?
The team was not ready…at all.
Ryan Miller made 38 saves and Jayson Megna and Jack Skille both had two goals apiece as the Vancouver Canucks beat up on the Tampa Bay Lightning 5-1 last night. The Bolts have now lost six of seven and the Penguins are coming to visit.
Jonathan Drouin scored the lone Lightning goal, his fourth at 11:26 of the second period from Valtteri Filppula (12) and Luke Witkowski (1).
[protected-iframe id=”a5ec02689de6ad210b9bf7e64cfc30dd-114320562-46289989″ info=”https://www.nhl.com/video/embed/drouin-nets-loose-puck/t-283225498/c-47142403?autostart=false” width=”540″ height=”360″]To say the least, Tampa Bay has played inconsistently tonight they snapped that streak by being bad from the start. After Skille’s first goal, where he beat the Lightning defense down the ice and in front of Bishop, they never recovered. The Bolts bench seemed to all look at each other as if saying, “What heck just happened?”
Where’s the goaltending?
Ben Bishop was yanked after allowing four goals on 20 shots through two periods. Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped nine of the 10 shots he faced.
Where’s the D?
Coach Jon Cooper said, “We’re putting a load on a lot of guys shoulders and they have to step up here. There were some bad stat lines for a few of those guys tonight.”
Where’s the O?
Beat writer Joe Smith tells us, it was a tough game for Vladislav Namestnikov, Alex Killorn and Nikita Kucherov who started the game together. They were a combined -11. It was Kucherov’s first -4 game of his NHL career.
[protected-iframe id=”7f9904ab45ec3380d26cabd513dd6775-114320562-46289989″ info=”hash” class=”twitter-tweet”]Can the Bolts (30 points, nine behind Montreal) stop the free fall? Will Yzerman make a move? Without Stamkos and with Bishop playing below par, can the Bolts make the playoffs?
[protected-iframe id=”51ff6e84d5647206e9712c48193ecf23-114320562-46289989″ info=”https://www.nhl.com/video/embed/recap-van-5-tbl-1/t-277753022/c-47158503?autostart=false” width=”540″ height=”360″]Stay tuned as they host the Penguins at 7:30 PM on Saturday at Amalie Arena.
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