After playing one of their best first periods of the entire 2023-24 season and jumping out to a 2-0 lead, the Tampa Bay Lightning surrendered four consecutive goals over the final 40 minutes of play and dropped a third-straight game in regulation with a 4-2 loss to the Pittsburgh Penguins.
Steven Stamkos opened the scoring with his 10th goal of the season 9:06 into the first period. After a Nikita Kucherov pass from the right corner ended up on the stick of Victor Hedman at the left point, the big defenseman skated into the high slot and fired a quick shot that got redirected by Stamkos over the blocker of Tristan Jarry to make it a 1-0 game.
The Bolts doubled their lead with a power-play goal from Tanner Jeannot 3:27 later off assists from Mikhail Sergachev and Kucherov. Collecting the puck on the half wall, Kucherov sent a backhand pass to the point for Sergachev, who fired a quick shot on goal, where Jeannot was waiting to jam the rebound past Jarry for his fifth goal of the season, making it a 2-0 game with three seconds remaining on the man advantage.
The Lightning finished the first period with a 17-5 shot advantage and had the momentum going into the middle frame. But as has been the case in many games this season, costly mistakes crept into Tampa Bay’s game and ended up costing them two points.
With 11:07 left in the second period, Sidney Crosby capitalized on a Bolts turnover and beat Andrei Vasilevskiy on a breakaway with a shot into the top left corner. Then, in the final minute of the middle frame, another Tampa Bay turnover gave the Pens a 2-on-1 rush that ended with Drew O’Connor finishing off a pass from Evgeni Malkin to even the score at 2-2 heading into the third.
Just 2:49 into the third period, the Lightning surrendered a 3-on-2 odd-man rush, allowing Jeff Carter to capitalize with his first goal of the season to put Pittsburgh up 3-2. The Bolts continued to push for the tying goal, once again outshooting the Penguins 17-5 in the final 20 minutes, but Jarry was strong in net and iced the game himself when he fired a shot the length of the ice and into an empty net with 1:08 remaining, becoming the first goalie in Penguins history to score a goal in the process.
Andrei Vasilevskiy was strong in goal for Tampa Bay, stopping 25 of 28 shots against, but it was costly mistakes that once again came back to bite the Lightning in the end. The Bolts finished the night with a 41-29 shot advantage.
Bolts by the Numbers
- Nikita Kucherov collected two first period assists, joining Victor Hedman (41) and Steven Stamkos(40) as the third player in Lightning franchise history to record at least 40 multi-assist periods.
- Kucherov has now recorded 28 points (9G, 19A) in 14 games this month, the most among all NHL players. He led the league in points in November, marking the tenth time in his career that he has led all players in scoring in a calendar month (outright or tied; regular season & playoffs combined), tied with Alex Ovechkin for the third most among active players. Only Connor McDavid (16x) and Sidney Crosby (13x) have more.
- Kucherov extended his point/assist streak to eight games, tied for the longest assist streak of hios career.
Bolts Quotes
- Jon Cooper: “We've got the best goalie in the league on our team, but if you're going to give Sidney Crosby a breakaway and you're going to give Malkin an untracked 2-on-1 and then you're going to give up another 3-on-2, I think those are the only odd-man rushes they had all night and they scored on all three of them. There's no recipe for that. It comes now within the room. Would you make those decisions in a playoff game? Or are you making them in game 24? At some point, and I think that point has hit us now, we're going to have to treat every game like a playoff game or we won't be there.”
- Steven Stamkos: “That was probably the best hockey we played all year in the first period - smothering them, skating, backchecking. It was the recipe. Then, like I said, just a couple plays that lead to chances to some really good players and they make you pay and then it's a whole different feel of the game. They gain some momentum. Another game where we get 40 shots and don't have any points to show for it. It's tough, but they're correctable things. They're things that us as players can fix and we have no choice but to fix them.”
- Jon Cooper: “I went in the locker room and basically asked the guys - I've probably given this speech eight times this year. I asked them what the speech was and they knew exactly what it was. If it was a structure thing or a work ethic thing or something like that - we just, at times in games, we make crazy poor decisions. And every time we make it, it ends up in the back of the net.”
- Steven Stamkos: “We need to just stay even keeled in here. We need to be accountable to each other and continue to work. It's not a work ethic issue. It's not a systems issue. I think we've improved in those areas. It's just certain times in games where we can make maybe a safer play.”
Krenner’s Three Stars
- Tristan Jarry
- Sidney Crosby
- Erik Karlsson
Lightning Look Ahead
Saturday, December 2 at Dallas Stars, 2 p.m. ET, American Airlines Center
Monday, December 4 vs. Dallas Stars, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
Wednesday, December 6 vs. Pittsburgh Penguins, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
