The Tampa Bay Lightning dropped their Saturday matinee to the Ottawa Senators, 5-4. The Bolts battled back from 2-0 and 3-2 deficits, but a late second-period power play goal by Brady Tkachuk, and a third-period short-handed goal by Noah Gregor proved to be the difference. The Lightning failed to find the equalizer after Mitchell Chaffee brought them within a goal midway through the third period.
Andrei Vasilevskiy picked up his first loss of the season as he allowed 5 goals on 28 shots. Nikita Kucherov ran his goal-scoring streak to four games as he became the first Bolt to score seven goals in the team’s first four games. Chaffee, Nick Paul, and Jake Guentzel had their first tallies of the season. Anthony Cirelli had two assists but was in the penalty box when JJ Moser flung a puck over the glass in the first period. Ottawa didn’t let the the two-man advantage go to waste as Josh Norris scored to make it 2-0. It was an uphill battle from there for the Lightning.
Kucherov and Paul tied it up in the second period, but Drake Batherson took advantage of a turnover and beat Vasilevskiy to restore the Ottawa lead. Newcomer Guentzel tied it up late in the period with his first as a member of the Lightning, but Tkachuk scored his power play goal less than a minute later with Paul in the box for slashing.
Nikita Kucherov (Ryan McDonagh, Erik Cernak)
Nick Paul (Anthony Cirelli, Brandon Hagel)
Jake Guentzel (Brayden Point, Nikita Kucherov)
The Lightning their chance on a third-period power play after Norris went to the box for slashing Kucherov, but a blocked shot in the slot led to a two-on-one with Gregor and Shane Pinto. Victor Hedman was unable to knock down Pinto’s cross-ice pass and Gregor beat Vasy on the backhand.
Chaffee brought the Bolts back within one as he redirected a centering pass from Nick Perbix off of the rush.
Mitchell Chaffee (Nick Perbix, Anthony Cirelli)
Tampa Bay went 0-for-3 on the power play, including 48 seconds of 5-on-3 in which they weren’t able to convert. Meanwhile, Ottawa went 2-for-5 with the extra skater and added a short-handed goal. “We lost the special teams war tonight and that was the difference in the game. Usually we can win that war, but the league is too good. They got their breaks and made the best of them,” is how Coach Cooper put it after the game.
The Lightning will look to regain their form on Monday as they head to Toronto to take on the Maple Leafs.
