Looking for a response following Saturday’s 9-2 loss to the Florida Panthers, the Tampa Bay Lightning dropped a second-straight home contest in a 4-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators Monday night at AMALIE Arena.
After a fast start over the first five minutes, the Bolts fell into a 1-0 hole at the 10:45 mark of the first period when Tim Stutzle opened the scoring with his 13th goal of the season. Making a move around Emil Lilleberg at the Tampa Bay blue line, Stutzle moved into the slot and beat Andrei Vasilevskiy with a shot to the short side to give Ottawa the 1-0 lead.
Only 2:50 later, the Lightning surrendered a 2-on-1 to the Senators before Claude Giroux sent a pass to Mathieu Joseph, who fired a quick shot to the blocker side that got past Vasilevskiy to put the Bolts down 2-0 going into the second period.
With 4:11 remaining in the middle frame, Joseph made his mark on the game a second time, collecting a Lightning turnover at the Ottawa blue line and using his speed to dart down the ice and beat Vasilevskiy blocker side to put the Senators up 3-0 with his second goal of the night.
Tampa Bay got a quick response before the end of the period when Mitchell Chaffee netted his second goal of the season just 1:06 after Joseph made it 3-0. With the Bolts applying pressure in the Ottawa zone, Chaffee jumped on a loose puck right in front of the crease and fired a perfect shot over the glove of Anton Forsberg to get the Lightning on the board and make it a 3-1 game heading into the third period.
As the Bolts looked to get back within one, the Senators got the first goal of the final period off the stick of Vladimir Tarasenko to extend the lead to 4-1. Skating in on a 2-on-1, Brady Tkachuk ripped a shot off the right pad of Vasilevskiy that bounced right onto the stick of Tarasenko for the veteran forward to pot his 15th goal of the year with 15:59 remaining in regulation.
The Lightning responded quickly when Brandon Hagel stole the puck from Drake Batherson and sent a pass to Brayden Point, who roofed a shot over the glove of Forsberg just 35 seconds after the Tarasenko goal. But that would go down as the final goal of the contest, resulting in a 4-2 loss for Tampa Bay.
Vasilevskiy finished the night with 23 saves on 27 shots against as the Bolts fell to 30-22-5 with a home record of 18-7-3.
Bolts by the Numbers
- Mitchell Chaffee scored his second goal of the season with 3:05 remaining in the second period. Chaffee scored his first career NHL goal Jan. 25 vs. ARI and has recorded three points in 10 games with the Lightning this season (2-1—3).
- Brayden Point scored his 28th goal of the season (28-30—58) and extended his goal/point streak to three games (3-1—4).
- Brandon Hagel recorded the lone assist on Point's goal and extended his career-long point streak to 10 games (7-8-15), four more games than his previous best of six games and one game shy of tying the longest point streak among all Lightning skaters this season (Kucherov, 11 games).
- The Lightning didn’t have a power-play opportunity for the first time all season, marking just the 21st time in franchise history that the Bolts went an entire game without going on the man advantage.
Bolts Quotes
- Jon Cooper: “You can't get this back. There goes an opportunity to get points. Everybody around you won today and you didn't. We can't be doing this win one, lose one, win two, lose two. It's not going to get it done for us.”
- Victor Hedman: “We're not at a part of the season where that can happen. We've just got to figure that out right away. We've come a long way and these last two games have been a step backwards. We've got to make sure that we stop the bleeding now and don't feel sorry for ourselves because it's too late in the season for that. We've just got to take the bull by the horns and get back to work tomorrow.”
- Cooper: “We responded well for nine minutes and 15 seconds. We spent the first 10 minutes of the period in their end and had a whole bunch of moments that rose the heart rate and they didn't go in. And then, as soon as they got that first one, we were just flat. Maybe it's remnants from what happened the other night, but everything changed after that and we couldn't quite get it back, especially after they went up two. That was the disappointing part of the night. There's a ton of game left and we were just flat. There was no emotion. That was the disappointing part for me after what I thought was a good response in the first 10 minutes.”
Krenner’s Three Stars
- Mathieu Joseph
- Mitchell Chaffee
- Tim Stutzle
Lightning Look Ahead
- Thursday, February 22 vs. Washington Capitals, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
- Saturday, February 24 at New York Islanders, 2 p.m. ET, UBS Arena
- Sunday, February 25 at New Jersey Devils, 1 p.m. ET, Prudential Center
