2. Know Your Enemy
This is the third of a four-time road trip for the Bolts, who suffered a 2-1 loss to the Oilers on Tuesday, but entered the night with wins in three of their last four.
Andrei Vasilevskiy was brilliant in goal, stopping 23 of the 25 shots fired his way, but his team’s normally potent offence failed to click into gear, with Jake Guentzel’s 13th of the campaign providing the lone glimmer of offence.
“That was a bad hockey game, actually, probably by both teams,” Lightning Head Coach Jon Cooper told reporters afterward. “There was a lot of talent on the ice, and I don’t think either team kind of had it. It’s just made worse that we didn’t get points out of it.
"We pushed in the third period and had our looks. We did. And they just didn’t go in. But I think we held the Edmonton Oilers to 43 shot attempts. Not shots, shot attempts. You think, ‘OK, you’re kind of doing the right thing.’
“It was one of those nights where, when you play 82 of these, you’ve got to find a way to sneak some points out of them when you just don’t have it. And for most nights we’ve had it, but tonight we didn’t. I don’t know if they had it either; that’s what just kind of makes it sting a bit because we were there, there were some points for the taking. We just couldn’t grasp it.”
This was only the second time in 26 games this season the Lightning have been held to one goal or less.
In fact, they roll into the Stampede City as one of the league’s top dogs offensively, scoring an average of 3.81 goals per game to place them second, overall, behind the Washington Capitals.
The Bolts have players with at least 20 points, with three of those – Nikita Kucherov, Branden Hagel and Calgary native Brayden Point – already eclipsing the 30-point plateau.
Kucherov’s 38 points have him tied for seventh in league scoring, eight points back of the pack leader, Nathan MacKinnon.
