The Tampa Bay Lightning couldn’t overcome a 2-0 deficit on the road Thursday and dropped a 4-1 game to the Winnipeg Jets at Canada Life Centre.
A dominant second period for Winnipeg changed Tampa Bay's record to 38-18-4 this season and handed the Bolts a fourth consecutive loss as the Lightning seek to get back to their pre-Olympics standard of play.
“We’ll be fine, and we’ve got a great group in there. Ultimately you get judged by your wins and losses, and we’ve been trending down since this break,” head coach Jon Cooper said postgame. “But if there’s a group I want to stand behind, it’s the one in that locker room over there. Sometimes you’ve just gotta learn the hard way, and that’s what we are right now.”
Tampa Bay had a few solid chances in the first period, and Lightning goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy denied numerous quality looks for the Jets over the opening 20 minutes before Winnipeg took command in the middle frame.
Winnipeg kept pushing in the second period, opening the scoring with a pair of late goals while outshooting the visitors 14 to seven in the process.
Forward Morgan Barron took the 1-0 lead for the Jets with 4:29 left in the middle frame, burying a rebound chance at the left post off a 2-on-1 rush shot from Cole Koepke in the right circle.
The Jets then doubled their advantage to 2-0 with 18 seconds left in the period off a one-timed shot by Mark Scheifele in the left faceoff circle shortly after the Jets broke the puck out of their own end.
“It was just not a good defensive game by us and it was a good offensive game by them,” Lightning forward Brayden Point said. “They were skating and we were slow to pucks. They were getting odd-man (rushes) and capitalizing on them, so not what we want to do and not how we were winning games. So hopefully we can get back to how we were winning games.”
The Lightning flashed some life with a quick goal to open the third period, making it 2-1 when a Darren Raddysh shot atop the power-play setup bounced off the back wall and into the slot for a quick shot by Point near the right hashmark less than two minutes into the final frame.
The goal was Point’s fifth tally over his last six games, a stretch in which he’s scored 10 points.
“Raddy does a good job just trying to funnel it to the net, and I get a good bounce and it lands right on my stick,” Point said of the power play. “I think just getting pucks to the net was a focus, and I thought we did okay.”
Despite Tampa Bay possessing many of the chances early in the third period, Winnipeg re-established its two-goal lead before the sixth minute with a shot from Gustav Nyquist in the high slot following a failed breakout by the Lightning.
Kyle Connor capped the scoring with an empty-net goal for the Jets to make it 4-1.
“I thought they were faster than us a little bit tonight,” Yanni Gourde said. “They played good, and we didn't play our game. But credit to them, they played really well.”
Vasilevskiy finished with 26 saves for Tampa Bay, who will look to get back to form when they open a divisional back-to-back on Saturday in Toronto.
“It was a tough one giving up that one with 19 seconds left in the second period. We come out, the power play scores. Listen, did we push? We did. But ultimately, who got the next one? They did. And then after that I think we were searching for answers,” Cooper said.
“It's times like that, this team's been not only physically tough, but mentally tough, and we're being tested right now. And when you play 82 games, you're gonna get tested. We're in kind of one of those ruts right now that now we’ve got to dig in and see what we have. So this is a good test for us.”
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
1. Mark Scheifele, WPG (Goal, assist)
2. Connor Hellebuyck, WPG (26-save win)
3. Kyle Connor, WPG (Goal, assist)
