Facing a Chicago team that had played and traveled the night before, the Lightning thoroughly dominated possession throughout 60 minutes of regulation. That domination is reflected in the shot attempt numbers before overtime: 70-33 in favor of Tampa Bay.
But despite those 70 attempts, the Lightning managed to score just one goal. The play of Chicago goalie Arvid Soderblom was one reason. He made initial saves of varying difficulty and allowed very few rebounds. The ‘Hawks defenders battled hard in front of their net to limit Grade-A chances. And plenty of those Lightning attempts didn’t require a save from Soderblom—they finished with 26 shots that missed the net.
So there may have been some frustration on the Lightning’s side that they weren’t able to translate so much offensive-zone possession time into a scoreboard advantage. But their ability to have the puck most of the night meant that the Blackhawks weren’t going on the attack themselves. This turned out to be a positive, because the ‘Hawks did generate some good looks of their own, even with that limited possession time. In the early minutes, Jason Dickinson hit the post and crossbar on an in-alone attempt. Ryan Greene scored the opening goal on a similar open chance late in the first period. And Chicago had some other close calls around the Lightning net that stayed out.
The Lightning did eventually tie things up late in the second period. They were effective at preventing the ‘Hawks from clearing the defensive zone during the game, and that was the case on this play as well. Anthony Cirelli stripped the puck from Alex Vlasic at the left circle and set up Brandon Hagel in the slot. Hagel quickly passed to Nikita Kucherov, who was open at the top of the crease. Kucherov slipped a backhander into an open side of the net with 1:18 left in the stanza.
The third period followed a similar script to the first two, except that neither team scored. Overtime was a different story, however. The Blackhawks enjoyed nearly all of the possession and nearly ended the game on several occasions. The puck improbably didn’t go in when Ilya Mikheyev and Andre Burakovsky had a two-on-zero opportunity. Andrei Vasilevskiy also stopped a Wyatt Kaiser point-blank chance. After posting just those 33 attempts through 60 minutes, Chicago had seven attempts in overtime.
Both teams had chances to win the game in the shootout. Frank Nazar extended things with a goal in round three for Chicago, as did Gage Goncalves with a fourth-round tally. In round five, after Vasilevskiy stopped Oliver Moore (who’d scored the shootout winner the night before against Carolina), Dominic James ended things with a goal on the Lightning’s fifth-round shot.
The victory extended the Lightning’s overall point streak to 15 games and their franchise-best road point streak to 13 (11-0-2). They complete the back-to-back on Saturday in Columbus.
Lightning Radio Three Stars of the Game (as selected by Bobby “The Chief” Taylor):
- Andrei Vasilevskiy — Lightning. 17 saves. Four in OT.
- Dominic James — Lightning. Shootout winner.
- Erik Cernak — Lightning.
