"You can beat the team, but you've still got to beat the goalie," said Lightning head coach Jon Cooper. "The goalie had a hell of a game tonight and good for him.
"I'm sure there was a little motivation for him having formerly been with us. I know Connor. He's a great kid. Good for him."
On the second half of a back-to-back following a shootout win over the Colorado Avalanche on Tuesday, the Bolts came out flying. Tampa Bay outshot Arizona 20-7 in the first period and were generating high quality scoring chances left and right, but former Lightning draft pick Connor Ingram stood tall in the crease for the Coyotes with a ton of great saves.
In the second period, it was more of the same. Tampa Bay outshot Arizona 17-6 in the second period, but once again could not find a way to get anything past Ingram.
The Coyotes started to generate some chances in the third period, outshooting the Lightning 13-5, but Brian Elliott made some big saves of his own in the Tampa Bay crease to keep the game tied at zero.
"Elliott kind of gets forgotten about, but he made some big saves himself," said Cooper. "Goalies put on a clinic. It comes down to the skills competition at the end and they won it. That was it.
"Am I upset with our team? Not in the slightest.
"I thought we did a lot of good things defensively. We didn't give them a whole ton, but I think we got tired. In the third period, you could tell.
"Getting in at 3:30 in the morning last night, by the third period, we were a little tired and we saw what happened. Goalie had a big one for them."
The Bolts finished regulation with four power-play opportunities and fired 11 shots on goal over those four chances. Scoring on the road with the man advantage continues to be a struggle for the Lightning, who are 0-for-24 on the power play over the last eight contests.
But it wasn't for lack of trying. Tampa Bay was snapping the puck around on the power play and fired multiple quality shots on Ingram, but the puck just wasn't going in on Wednesday night.
After Arizona was whistled for a hooking penalty with just over 10 seconds remaining in overtime, Anthony Cirelli won a faceoff back to Steven Stamkos, who fed the puck over to Nikita Kucherov.
In all alone on Ingram, Kucherov fired a wrist shot that nailed the post just before the overtime period came to a close. From there, the game advanced to the shootout, where Steven Stamkos scored the lone goal for Tampa Bay. Nick Schmaltz and Clayton Keller found the back of the net to give Arizona the win.
Both goalies walked away from the game with a shutout. Elliott made 26 saves on 26 shots against for his first shutout of the season.
"We did a lot of good things, especially coming in so late after the game in Denver," said Elliott. "I tried my best to get that one, but we just weren't getting our bounces tonight.
"He played well at the other end of the rink. We got one point, and we'll move onto another big game coming up in Vegas."
The Bolts will head from Tempe to Las Vegas, where the team will face off with the Golden Knights on Saturday night. Puck drop is set for 10:30 p.m. ET.
