The Backcheck: Lightning fall to red-hot Jets

With injuries to Erik Cernak, Haydn Fleury and Mikhail Sergachev, the Tampa Bay Lightning were only able to dress five defensemen Tuesday night and fell to the Winnipeg Jets by a score of 4-2 at Canada Life Centre.

Coming into the contest, Winnipeg had gone 25 straight games without allowing an opponent to score more than three goals. With a strong performance from Connor Hellebuyck and 23 blocked shots from his teammates, the Jets were able to push that streak to 26.

The Lightning came out of the gate with pace and scored the first goal of the game when Steven Stamkos lit the lamp on the power play at the 6:18 mark of the first period. With Adam Lowry in the penalty box for high-sticking, Stamkos set up in his office at the left circle and hammered a one-timer pass Connor Hellebuyck off a pass from Victor Hedman with Nikita Kucherov picking up the secondary helper.

Winnipeg pushed back after the Stamkos goal, but Tampa Bay did a nice job keeping the puck to the outside and didn’t give up many high-danger scoring chances. As a result, they took the 1-0 lead to the locker room for the first intermission with an 11-7 shot advantage.

And while the Bolts were able to outshoot the Jets once again in the second period, Winnipeg still managed to outscore Tampa Bay 2-0 and go into the second intermission with a 2-1 lead.

Neal Pionk got the first Jets goal when he redirected a slap pass from Brenden Dillon past Andrei Vasilevskiy at the 4:44 mark. Then, 4:29 later, Alex Iafallo jumped on a rebound in front of the net and quickly fired a shot into the back of the net to give Winnipeg the lead.

Going into the third period trailing by one, the Lightning’s comeback effort was stalled for the opening seven minutes or so with Kucherov getting whistled for tripping at the 2:20 mark before Andrei Vasilevskiy was also called for tripping nearly three minutes later.

The Bolts successfully killed both penalties, but a strong Jets team limited the scoring chances against and, when Tampa Bay did get looks at the net, Hellebuyck stood tall in his crease to maintain the one-goal lead for the Jets.

Nikolaj Ehlers made it 3-1 with 4:47 left in regulation before Morgan Barron added an empty-net goal at the 17:53 mark to make it 4-1.

Kucherov added a power-play goal late in the contest to make it 4-2, but it was too late for the Lightning with the puck hitting the back of the net with only 36.8 seconds remaining.

The loss pushed Tampa Bay’s record to 18-16-5 this season with a road mark of 7-11-2. The Bolts are 5-5-0 in their last 10 contests.

Bolts by the Numbers

- Steven Stamkos opened the scoring with his 16th goal of the season and 202nd career power-play goal. With his goal, Stamkos tied Steve Yzerman for the 18th-most power-play goals in NHL history. Only five players in NHL history have scored more power-play goals with a single franchise than Stamkos.

- Victor Hedman picked up the primary assist on the power-play goal by Stamkos, as well as the power-play goal by Kucherov, and is up to 38 points on the year with five goals and 33 assists.

- Nikita Kucherov scored his 10th power-play goal of the year and recorded the secondary helper on the Stamkos goal. He continues to lead the NHL with 63 points this season and has logged 27 goals and 36assists through just 38 games.

- Kucherov, Stamkos and Hedman all connected on a goal for the 77th time, placing them second in the NHLsince 2013-14 behind the former Bruins trio of Patrice Bergeron, Brad Marchand and David Pastrnak, who combined for 94 goals.

- Brayden Point picked up the secondary assist on the Kucherov power-play goal and is up to 40 points on the season with 17 goals and 23 assists through 39 games.

Bolts Quotes

- Jon Cooper: “I thought we played a pretty darn good road game. It was tough to get scored on in the first five minutes of the second, but we were doing what we wanted to do. It was tough that we couldn’t get that second one. We did everything we could to try and get it. They just weren’t dropping for us.”

- Victor Hedman: “I think today we played good enough to win. For us, we trust in what we have and we’ve just got to keep believing. That’s the bottom line. Winnipeg has a great record for a reason and a solid team that’s well coached with great goaltending. But I think we stood up pretty good and I felt like we could’ve got a point out of this one.”

- Victor Hedman: “I think we started really well. I thought our first period was great. Second period, I think they took advantage of a couple longer shifts for us and were able to score.”

- Conor Sheary: “We’ve just got to find a way to win. I think, especially on the road, we’ve been struggling a little bit. We just have to find a way to keep our game simple for the whole game. I think we’re doing it in spurts, but not for 60 minutes, and that’s hurting us right now.”

Krenner’s Three Stars

1. Connor Hellebuyck

2. Vladislav Namestnikov

3. Victor Hedman

Lightning Look Ahead

- Thursday, January 4 at Minnesota Wild, 8 p.m. ET, Xcel Energy Center

- Saturday, January 6 at Boston Bruins, 7 p.m. ET, TD Garden

- Tuesday, January 9 vs. Los Angeles Kings, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena