The Lightning began their first road trip of the season with just four points combined from its defensemen, three of those points tallied by Victor Hedman.
Before Saturday's game at Ottawa, Anton Stralman talked about the importance of the defensemen doing a better job joining the rush and the forwards getting more pucks to the defensemen once they enter the zone.
Then the Bolts went out and did just that against the Senators.
Stralman got it started himself for the Bolts' first goal, sending a shot from the blue line on a power play that both Ondrej Palat and Vladislav Namestnikov got a piece of to deflect past Ottawa goalie Craig Anderson. Stralman got the second assist on Namestnikov's goal for his first point of the season.
Later in the game with Tampa Bay clinging to a 2-1 lead, Jason Garrison engineered a huge goal for the Bolts, sending the puck ahead to Valtteri Filppula on a rush and Filppula finding Alex Killorn for his team-leading fourth goal of the season and Garrison's second assist of the season.
Bolts defensemen accounted for two points on Saturday, half their total from the first four games of the season.
Additionally, Vladislav Namestnikov, who was scoreless entering Saturday's game, made a big impact in the 4-1 win over the Senators, scoring a goal and adding an assist for the ninth multi-point game of his career.
"First couple of games, things were not going my way, but stayed in front of the net and something good was bound to happen," Namestnikov said.
The Lightning now have nine players with goals and 14 players with at least a point.
That kind of balanced scoring bodes well for the team as its primary scorers won't always be able to get on the score sheet.
2. VASY, VASY, VASY…OY, OY, OY