Like Tuesday’s game against Detroit, the Lightning got off to a quick start against a team that had played in Sunrise the night before. Unlike the contest versus the Red Wings, they didn’t allow the Blackhawks to close the gap on the scoreboard. As a result, the Lightning improved to 8-0-0 at home this season.
It would have been difficult for the Lightning to replicate their first-period dominance against Detroit, when they held a 38-6 shot-attempt advantage. But the Lightning did control the opening 20 minutes against Chicago and built a 2-0 lead.
During an early power play, the Lightning elected to use two defensemen on the first unit: Charle-Edouard D’Astous and John Carlson. So Victor Hedman, who’d only registered a total of two minutes and forty seconds of power-play time prior to this game, came out with the second unit. Starting in the neutral zone, he executed a give-and-go rush with Anthony Cirelli. From the left circle in the offensive zone, Cirelli passed to Hedman in the low slot, and Hedman one-timed a shot past Arvid Soderblom at 4:12.
Former Blackhawk Ilya Mikheyev extended the lead with a left-circle shot that beat Soderblom between the pads at 18:22.
The second period was a choppy frame that included plenty of whistles. There were 30 faceoffs in the middle period alone. Fortunately for the Lightning, they won the vast majority of the draws in the game. Still, in the second half of the period, the Blackhawks successfully applied pressure on the Lightning in the Tampa Bay defensive zone to create some failed clears. But Tampa Bay held its structure well, so the ‘Hawks didn’t create too many dangerous looks.
Early in the third, the Lightning pulled away. Ryan McDonagh stepped into a left-circle slapshot that beat Soderblom high on the stick side at 2:38. Exactly 90 seconds later, Mikheyev netted his second goal of the game when he finished a backdoor feed from Erik Cernak.
The ‘Hawks kept up their forechecking pressure through the game and finally got rewarded in the final minute. Roman Kantserov deflected Sam Rinzel’s shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy at 19:11, breaking up the shutout bid.
One key to the win was the play of the Zemgus Girgensons, Pontus Holmberg, and Mikheyev line. Girgensons returned from injury to center the line that matched against Connor Bedard’s line throughout the night. The Girgensons line accounted for two goals (the Mikheyev tallies) and spent most of the night in possession of the puck in the offensive zone.
The Lightning have successfully taken care of business at Benchmark International Arena so far this year. Now they’ll look to improve on their 2-3-2 road record—they play their next four away from home in two sets of back-to-backs.
Lightning Radio Three Stars of the Game (as selected by Phil Esposito):
- Ilya Mikheyev — Lightning. Two goals.
- Zemgus Girgensons — Lightning. Assist.
- Andrei Vasilevskiy/Pontus Holmberg — Lightning. 24 saves for Vasilevskiy and assist for Holmberg.
