The Tampa Bay Lightning faced a multi-goal deficit for the third game in a row on Tuesday, and the visiting Bolts couldn’t pull off the comeback against the Minnesota Wild in a late night contest at Grand Casino Arena.
The Wild took the win by a 5-1 score, dropping the Lightning record to 38-17-4 this season. The loss marked the team's third in a row.
“We really just didn't have a lot of winning habits in our game, and it's kind of been a tough stretch here where you can say things aren't going our way, but also our execution, our will to win, our want to win,” defenseman Ryan McDonagh said. “You look for answers, but sometimes you’ve got to look within yourself. And us as a team, we’ve got to work through this here and start getting back to winning habits. We’ve proven we can do it, and it's a matter of digging deep and starting to build something here.”
Minnesota was the first team to find a goal on Tuesday and took their 1-0 lead 3:46 into the game with defenseman Brock Faber’s shot from the top of the right faceoff circle.
A parade of penalties allowed the Wild to build on their lead, as Mats Zuccarello made it 2-0 for the home team five minutes into the second period with a shot from the left circle during a 4-on-3 power play.
The Lightning broke into the scoring with 4:53 left in the second period when Nikita Kucherov finished a rush opportunity to cut the score to 2-1. Jake Guentzel carried the puck into the offensive zone and passed to Brayden Point near the left post, where Point fed the trailing Kucherov for a top-shelf shot and goal.
Minnesota restored its two-goal lead two minutes later, making it 3-1 when Yakov Trenin tucked in a loose rebound after dumping the puck on net.
“You come into the locker room after two periods down 3-1, and you think the wrong team is up 3-1. So I didn't mind the way we played,” coach Jon Cooper said. “We gave them some gifts. When you're going to give a good team like that some freebies, it hurts your chances. But we got our looks. We gave them 5-on-3’s consecutively. I don't think I've ever seen penalties like that where we just took three consecutive high sticks, too many men. Those are on us. You feed a good team like that chances, they capitalized and we didn't on ours.”
Wild defenseman Quinn Hughes, who co-led all players with two points on Tuesday, extended the Wild lead to 4-1 by rushing down to the right hashmark and burying a shot 6:53 into the third period.
Kirill Kaprizov ended the night with an empty-net goal for the Wild, who were led by Matt Boldy’s three points.
Tampa Bay outshot the Wild 26-22 but as Cooper alluded to, took five penalties in the process. Multiple Lightning voices spoke on needing to be better defensively postgame.
“It’s just getting back to our old habits, the ones that made us have success,” Oliver Bjorkstrand said. “Every time you get on the ice, you’ve got to be ready to play, and you can't have these swings in your game. It’s all the way through the lineup, and we’ve just got to get back to the old habits.”
The Lightning will aim to return to their winning ways when they continue their road trip with a visit to play the Winnipeg Jets this Thursday.
"We've got a great group of guys in there, so I'm not worried about them,” Cooper said postgame. “And yeah, does it sting a bit that we've lost three in a row? Sure. Are we giving up too many goals? Of course we are. But there's a foundation there. Again, it's 82 games. The bottom line is, now we have to end this now. We can't let this slide continue, and I'm confident they will."
Benjamin’s Three Stars:
1. Quinn Hughes, MIN (Goal, assist)
2. Matt Boldy, MIN (3 assists)
3. Mats Zuccarello, MIN (Goal, assist)
