Following the strong start from the Lightning, Winnipeg punched back to tie the game at one with 9:45 remaining in the opening period when Logan Stanley collected the puck at the left point and sent a pass to Nate Schmidt, who fired a shot toward the net that got redirected in front and beat Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Entering the second period with the score tied at one, the Bolts went to the penalty kill early after Ross Colton was whistled for hooking at the 34 second mark of the middle frame. Colton likely saved a goal by taking the penalty, but the Jets capitalized just 27 seconds into the power play on a goal from Nino Niederreiter to take the 2-1 lead.
With 10:56 remaining in the second, Winnipeg made it a 3-1 game when Morgan Barron jumped on a rebound in front and found the back of the net following some contact between Brenden Dillon and Andrei Vasilevskiy.
Tampa Bay challenged the play for goaltender interference, but the goal was upheld after a lengthy review by the officials and sent the Lightning back to the penalty kill for delay of game.
Fortunately for the Bolts, the failed challenge essentially worked in their favor with Cirelli scoring a shorthanded goal 57 seconds into the penalty. Stepping up in the defensive zone and breaking up a shot attempt from the point, Cirelli took a nice saucer pass from Hagel and beat Hellebuyck over the glove to get the Lightning back within one.
"We were calling it a great challenge because we scored a shorty," joked Tampa Bay head coach Jon Cooper. "Then we subsequently got a 5-on-3 after that, so we thought the challenge was a rallying cry for our guys. We just didn't capitalize on it."
That 5-on-3 advantage came in the latter half of the second period and while the Bolts were unable to capitalize, they did hit the post a couple times and came close. But in the end, not scoring with the two-man advantage was one of the big differences in the game with neither team scoring a goal in the third period.
"Did we play well enough to win the game? We did," said Cooper. "Did we have enough scoring chances to win the game? We did.
"All in all, we missed an opportunity by not scoring on the 5-on-3 and their goalie made saves in the end. That was it.
"I thought we played well enough to win the game. It's disappointing we don't get any points out of it."
Those last two sentences are the key from this game. The Lightning played well enough to win. In my opinion, they were the better team at 5-on-5 for the majority of the contest, but did give up some high-danger chances that they'd like to eliminate.
Tampa Bay has an 11-point cushion in their current spot of third place in the Atlantic Division with 15 games left in the regular season. Barring a massive losing streak, they'll be playing Toronto in the first round.
What's most important over those next 15 games is the process that we have heard Cooper talk about time and time again. The Bolts need to continue trending upward and getting their game where they want it to be for the postseason. You need points, but nights like Sunday when you're on the second end of a back-to-back, I think the most important thing was that the team played well enough to win and took another step forward after the five-game losing streak.
