2. NEWCOMERS SHINE IN DEBUT
In his postgame media session, Cooper said Pat Maroon delivered the funniest comment in the winning locker room.
"Patty had the line he's on pace for 82 (goals)," Cooper said with a grin. "We'll see how that goes for him. It's just stuff like that that puts a smile on your face."
Maroon's going to have a lot of people wearing Lightning blue grinning if he continues to perform the way he did in the season opener. The Stanley Cup-winning forward iced the victory for the Lightning at 13:51 of the third period when he parked himself in front of the net, collected Victor Hedman's rebound off the back wall and scored past Bobrovsky to give the Lightning their first two-goal cushion of the evening.
"Lucky bounce off the boards, but my job is to stay in front of the net and look for second and third opportunities," Maroon said. "The boys did a good job of whacking the puck and getting second and third opportunities and I was just there to clean up the trash."
Earlier in the period, Maroon got hit by a shot in the offensive zone, one that left him crumpled on the ice before he gingerly made his way back to the Lightning bench. That he was able to not miss a shift and come back out to score an insurance goal later in the same period is a testament to his toughness.
"I'm used to those, so you'll probably see me go down a lot in front of the net," Maroon joked. "I'll get hit a lot there. My job's not to move the front of the net. If I get hit, I get hit. That's my job. I've made a career doing that. It hurts. It stings a little bit, get back to the bench, your knee locks up. But you go back out there and try to do it again."
Kevin Shattenkirk made a positive impression in his Lightning debut too. Although he admittedly wasn't as sharp early as he'd like to be, he recovered to provide a pivotal goal for the Bolts, scoring at 10:28 of the second period as a power play expired to put Tampa Bay back in front 2-1 after Mike Hoffman tied the game earlier in the period.
"I think for me it was really just getting the puck to the net and hoping for the best," Shattenkirk said. "It seemed to be there most of the night, those shooting lanes. It was just one of those ones that you kind of look and everyone else starts celebrating before you. You figure something good happened."
And although Luke Witkowski and Gemel Smith didn't get on the scoresheet, both brought a tenaciousness to the fourth line and, along with Maroon, were a physical presence on the ice, exactly what they were brought into the organization to provide.