Game: 39
Opponent: Minnesota
Score: 3-2
(SO) Win
Thoughts:
Two points is two
points. That's all that matters in the end, right? The Lightning
picked up two points against Minnesota and kept themselves in the
playoff race. It doesn't matter that Tampa Bay dominated for the
better part of two periods, building up a 25-15 lead in shots only to
then get outshot 15-3 in the third period, right?
Oh and Ondrej
Palat was back. The Triplets were back! Those are also good things.
So why dwell on 20 minutes of bad hockey? The game got off to such
a great start. The Lightning looked sharp on an early power play,
they moved the puck with confidence, players moved without the puck
to get open and most importantly – they got chances and took them.
Sure they didn't score, but they had the Wild on their heels.
Then, halfway
through the period, Valteri Filppula gets the puck on the wing,
streaks across the blue line, uses his filthy little mitts to
toe-drag around a sprawled defenseman and does what? Does he pass it
to Alex Killorn? NO! He shoots! And he SCORES! It really was a
beautiful display of skill.
Things are looking
so good. Four minutes later, possibly out of sheer boredom (he had
only made one save at this point) Andrei Vasilevskiy wanders out of
his net to play a puck. Unfortunately his soft little pass went right
to Charlie Coyle who backhanded it into the wide open net.
So despite
outshooting and outplaying the Wild, the Lightning went into the
intermission tied at 1 and I went to make tacos. It takes more than
17 minutes to cook and put together tacos so I missed MY BOY NIKITA
KUCHEROV giving the Lightning a lead just a minute into the second
period. Palat picked up an assist on Kucherov's 14th goal
and team-leading 30th point.
From there on the
rest of the second period was fairly even as both teams traded
scoring chances. The third period as unfortunately all Minnesota as
the Lightning got stuck in their own zone and never got out. The
bunker mentality didn't pay off despite several key saves by
Vasilevskiy, who more than made up for his earlier gaffe.
Overtime featured
a few chances for the Lightning, but they were way more conservative
with the puck than they had been in past extra sessions. Several
times they skated the puck out of the offensive zone when they found
themselves in trouble. In the skills competition Vasy came out on top
stopping all three Minnesota shooters while Ryan Callahan used a
nifty deke to fool Devan Dubnyk for the Lightning's lone tally.
Palat looked like
he hadn't missed a beat due to his time off. He had 17 minutes of ice
time, mostly with Kucherov and Tyler Johnson and looked like he
rejuvenated his two teammates. Johnson played at a much higher pace
than he did in his return last game and Kucherov looked to shoot the
puck more than pass. Palat also showed that he wasn't shying away
from contact when he absolutely leveled Coyle along the boards in
overtime.
 |
| Look at the reaction from the guy on the right. Photo by Scott Audette (NHLI/Getty) |
With Palat back
and apparently healthy, Coach Cooper is back to having his two
scoring lines (although why he broke up the
Stamkos/Kucherov/Namestnikov line is beyond me). The Lightning head
out west with a little momentum and if they stay healthy are poised
to make a run up the standings. After all, if they can stay within 5
points of a top three spot in the division with Johnathan
Marchessault, Mike Blunden and Mike Angelidis getting playing time,
imagine what they can do with a healthy line up.
Did Matt Carle Get a Point?
Nope. This was a
good game by Matt Carle standards. By that I mean I didn't realize he
was playing until about halfway through the game. All-in-all he was
on the ice for 15:27 seconds (including 1:11 of short-handed play).
He was on the ice for Minnesota's game-tying score and looked to be a
little late picking up Jared Spurgeon who pounced on the rebound in
front of Vasilevskiy.
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