After falling behind 4-2 in the opening 20 minutes of play, the Tampa Bay Lightning were unable to mount a comeback and fell to the Chicago Blackhawks 5-2 at AMALIE Arena Thursday night.
The Lightning got on the board early with Anthony Cirelli netting a power-play goal for his second tally of the season. With Seth Jones in the penalty box for tripping, Mikhail Sergachev sent the puck to the top of the left circle for Brandon Hagel, who skated downhill and feathered a pass through the legs of Connor Murphy for Cirelli to fire a quick one-timer past Petr Mrazek just 3:20 into the opening period.
But the Bolts didn’t hold the lead for long with rookie sensation Connor Bedard beginning his big night by evening the score 1:22 after the Cirelli goal for his sixth tally of the season. After Philipp Kurashev intercepted a pass below the Lightning goal line, he sent the puck to the back door for Bedard, who beat Jonas Johansson to make it 1-1.
Tampa Bay answered at the 12:31 mark of the first when Victor Hedman sent a pass to Tanner Jeannot, who misfired with a one-timer, but Nikita Kucherov was right there to continue his hot streak, collecting the loose puck and quickly scoring his 11th goal of the season to give the Bolts a 2-1 lead.
With 3:17 remaining in the opening frame, Kevin Korchinski took a pass at the left circle and sifted a puck towards the net that found its way behind Johansson after going off the skate of a Tampa Bay defender to even the score at 2-2.
Chicago grabbed their first lead of the night only 55 seconds later when Tyler Johnson took advantage of a neutral zone turnover by his former team before skating in all alone on a 2-on-0 with Bedard, who fed Johnson a backhand pass, allowing him to beat Johansson for his fourth goal of the season, making it a 3-2 game.
As it looked like Tampa Bay was going to head into the first intermission trailing by one, Bedard picked up his second goal of the game with 7.2 seconds left in the period. Driving the net, Bedard took a pass from Nick Foligno and made a move to the backhand before Johansson made a great save with his right pad. But trying his hardest to stop the play on the backcheck, Cirelli crashed into Johansson and the puck slid over the goal line to put the Blackhawks up 4-2. The four goals against were the most the Bolts have allowed in a single period this season.
Opening the second period trailing by two, the Lightning were sent to the penalty kill 1:12 into the frame when Jeannot was assessed a double minor for high-sticking Bedard. Sixty seconds later, Bedard sent the puck to the front of the net for Corey Perry, who redirected his third goal of the season past Johansson to put Chicago up 5-2. Perry’s goal was the only tally of the second period.
As Tampa Bay continued to look for ways to get back in the game, Jon Cooper pulled Johansson for an extra attacker with a little over five minutes remaining in regulation. The strategy worked, with captain Steven Stamkos scoring his fifth goal of the season off assists from Cirelli and Brayden Point with 2:10 remaining.
But the Lightning were unable to find the back of the net for the remainder of the game and fell by a final score of 5-3.
Bolts by the Numbers
- Mikhail Sergachev recorded the 200thassist of his career, tying Tyler Johnson for the 11th-most helpers in Lightning franchise history.
- Nikita Kucherov scored his 11th goal of the season and has recorded 12 points over his last four contests (5-7—12). Kucherov is up to 23 points on the season, the second-most among all NHL skaters, trailing only Elias Pettersson (24).
- With one goal, Steven Stamkos extended his point streak to five games (2-5—7).
- Victor Hedman recorded one assist and extended his point streak to four games (2-6—8). Hedman is up to 14 assists on the season, tied for the second-most among all NHL defensemen and tied for fourth among all NHL skaters.
- Brandon Hagel recorded one assist and extended his point streak to three games (1-4—5). Hagel has recorded at least one point in each of his four career games against his former team.
- Anthony Cirelli picked up his first multi-point game of the season with one goal and one assist.
- Brayden Point recorded one assist and extended his point streak to four games (4-4—8).
Bolts Quotes
Jon Cooper: “We had the momentum in this game, clearly, in the first 10 or 12 minutes, whatever it was. And we gave the momentum back with our self-inflicted errors, plain and simple.”
Anthony Cirelli: “We've just got to be better. It's little things that we need to clean up and obviously the big one is turnovers. If we limit those, a lot of scoring chances go away. That and just being better in our own zone. Maybe breaking out the puck a little bit cleaner. That's on us. Little things that are easily correctable. We've just got to go out there and do it.”
Mikhail Sergachev: “We didn't really have one (a pushback) in the second. We kind of pushed, but we didn't shoot the puck. We created chances, but we didn't shoot. That was our problem, I think.”
Jon Cooper: “Just egregious turnovers, lack of execution. In the end, we just gave them freebies. This is a tough league to win in if you're just going to continue to do that. Give them credit, now they come out and have to protect the lead. If there was one disappointing part to the game, it was our lack of pushback in the last two periods. That was tough.”
Krenner’s Three Stars
- Connor Bedard
- Nick Foligno
- Corey Perry
Lightning Look Ahead
Saturday, November 11 vs. Carolina Hurricanes, 7 p.m. ET, AMALIE Arena - Buy Tickets
Tuesday, November 14 at St. Louis Blues, 8 p.m. ET, Enterprise Center
Thursday, November 16 at Chicago Blackhawks, 8 p.m. ET, United Center
