With 20 seconds to go in the game, and the Tampa Bay Lightning down by a goal to the Ottawa Senators, Jake Guentzel sent a pass across the crease in front of Linus Ullmark to an open Nick Paul. Unfortunately, the former Senator wasn’t able to get his stick on the pass, and the puck went harmlessly to the far boards. It would be the last real chance for the Lightning as they lost 2-1 in the suburbs of Canada’s capital city. The play summed up the night for the Lightning, they did a lot of good things, but not enough to pull out the victory. Brandon Hagel had the lone goal for the Lightning while Andrei Vasilevskiy stopped 17 of 19 shots.
The score after one period wasn’t indicative of how the Lightning played over the twenty minutes. For much of it, they did an excellent job of forcing the Senators into option B or C on their breakouts, mucked up the neutral zone, and didn’t allow much sustained time in their zone. Unfortunately, they weren’t able to cash in on their own offensive opportunities, which included two full power plays, and Ottawa did on theirs.
The Lightning’s best chance was Yanni Gourde’s semi-breakaway where he drew a penalty, but couldn’t beat Ullmark. The ensuing power play was ineffective, and Ottawa seemed to regain their footing a bit after it. They would also gain the lead a few minutes later when they took advantage of Oliver Bjorkstrand getting knocked to the ice in the Lightning zone, which led to a three-on-two break. Gourde was a little late in coverage, as it seemed like he was expecting an interference call on the hit that knocked his linemate down. With room in the slot, Shane Pinto slipped a shot past Vasilevskiy to open the scoring.
A second power play late in the period generated a few more chances for the Bolts, but Ullmark was up to the task with a couple of sharp blocker saves on Nikita Kucherov. The Bolts were only credited with two high-danger chances (both at 5v5), and Nick Paul admitted in the intermission that they needed a little more of a “shoot first” mentality in order to generate some chaos in front of the net.
Early in the second period, the Lightning did rack up a couple of more shots, but Ullmark was sharp on a screened shot from Brandon Hagel, and then, on the following shift, on a sharp snapper from Kucherov in the slot. Unfortunately, the Lightning arrested their own offensive development by forgetting that only five skaters were allowed on the ice at a time. On the power play, Tim Stutzle spun a backhand pass to Jake Sanderson who snaked a shot past Vasilevskiy from distance.
The Bolts train was teetering on two wheels, but didn’t come fully off of the tracks as their MVP (non-Kucherov department) Brandon Hagel crashed the net to shovel home a rebound off of Gourde’s shot off of the rush less than two minutes after the Ottawa goal. The tally seemed to spark a little life into them, but they couldn’t find the equalizer as Ullmark was sharp down the stretch.
Another power play for the Senators went by the wayside, but the Bolts seemed stuck in neutral for much of the period. Their breakouts weren’t as sharp as they were in the first, and they continued to struggle on getting to loose pucks in front of Ullmark. They were gifted a chance late in the period when Nick Jensen’s attempt to skate along the boards was upended by the referee. A turnover to Kucherov led to a one-timer for Guentzel, but Ullmark flung himself in front of the shot to make the save.
It was another “not bad” period for the Lightning, but also not one good enough to reclaim the lead.
Trailing by one with just twenty minutes to go isn’t the best time to take a penalty, but the Lightning aren’t always an orthodox team. In fact, they had their best stretch of play as Brandon Hagel had a short-handed chance breakaway denied by Ullmark. They followed that up with a two-on-one that found Anthony Cirelli pinging the crossbar.
To their credit, they found a little more offense in the third period, and the Senators seemed content to weather the storm in the their own end as they generated a whopping 9 shot attempts in the final frame. However, it wasn’t on them to score since they had the lead, so they bent like a palm tree in a hurricane, but didn’t break. Ullmark was a big part of that as he came up huge, especially on a late power play where Kucherov set up Jake Guentzel for a one-timer that the goaltender denied.
One last gasp with the empty net fell short for the Lightning, and their four-game winning streak came to an end. It wasn’t a bad game, especially for one on the road for the Lightning, but they just weren’t able to finish in the offensive zone.
Part of that was the play from Ullmark, but Ottawa also did a good job of taking away one of the spots where the Lightning like to generate offense – the blueline. The Lightning ended up with just three shots on goal from their defense off of just nine shot attempts. When Tampa Bay’s offense is cooking, a lot of shots are coming from the point to create deflection opportunities and rebound chances. That just wasn’t there tonight.
They’ll look to clinch on Saturday as they continue their road trip with a stop in Buffalo.
The Goals
Shane Pinto (Ridly Greig) 1-0 Senators
Jake Sanderson (Tim Stutzle, Ridly Grieg) Power Play, 2-0 Senators
Brandon Hagel (Yanni Gourde, Ryan McDonagh) 2-1 Senators
