D-Men Help Bolts Overcome Early Start Woes to Down Senators

Photo Credit: Alyssa Shimko | Thunderstruck Sports

The Lightning fought back to overcome another case of early start woes and beat the Ottawa Senators by a 4-2 final. The Bolts found themselves down 2-0 under five minutes into this one. They faced an uphill climb with Nick Paul and Nikita Kucherov out due to illness. Thankfully, defensemen Emil Lilleberg and Charle-Edouard D'Astous stepped up and led the comeback to put Tampa Bay back into first place in the Atlantic division (for now, as the Sabres play tonight).

A Tough Match-Up

This afternoon’s Lightning game had all the makings of a rough game for the home squad. The Bolts have struggled in afternoon games in recent years, and today’s opponent was a plucky Ottawa Senators team vying for their playoff lives. Shortly before game time, Tampa Bay received more bad news—Nick Paul and the team’s and league’s leading scorer, Nikita Kucherov, were both out due to illness. No doubt, this game would be an uphill climb for the Bolts.

Early Start Woes Continue

Within seconds of puck drop, that hill got even steeper. Dylan Cozens’ wrist shot beat Andrei Vasilevskiy 5-hole, and the Senators were up 1-0 just 18 seconds in. Things only got worse for the Lightning. Four minutes later, Ottawa applied pressure once again. This time, Vasilevskiy did make a quality save, but he also gave up a juicy rebound. The Lightning defense was far too sloppy, and just like that, the boys in blue found themselves down 2-0 just 4:25 into this game. This was the fourth straight game where they’d gone down by two goals early on.

Tampa Bay had their chances to get back into the game but just could not get anything going. They had two power plays in the first period. The first one was midway through the frame. The beleaguered Bolts most certainly missed Nikita Kucherov. The power play was lackluster, to say the least. The Lightning’s second power play was even worse. It came with just under two minutes remaining in the period. The Bolts could barely even make it into the Ottawa zone, and as the seconds ticked down, the boo-birds at Benchmark International expressed their feelings to usher the teams off the ice.

A Mirror Image Period

For the fourth straight game, the Lightning were in need of a comeback in the second period. Would they be able to do it again? It did not take long for Tampa Bay to answer that question. At 3:37, Brandon Hagel got his team back in the game 3:37 into the middle frame.

He rifled home his 34^th of the season from Charle-Edouard D’Astous and Emil Lilleberg.

Less than two minutes later, Lightning would strike again. This time, it was Charle-Edouard D’Astous with the backhand blast past James Reimer.

Just under five minutes into the first period, the Bolts had given up two goals. Just over five minutes into the second, they had scored two of their own to tie it up. In the first period, the Senators outshot the Lightning 11-8. In the second period, the Lightning outshot the Senators 11-8.

Putting Early Start Woes in the Rearview Mirror

When the teams took the ice in the third, it was a clean slate. The Lightning's early start woes were behind them. Now, they just needed a strong third period to keep their point streak (6 games coming into today) alive. Chances went back and forth with neither team finding the back of the net for almost half the period. Then, Gage Goncalves fed the puck to Brandon Hagel, and defenseman Emil Lilleberg joined the rush. Hagel passed it off to Lilleberg, and Lilleberg backhanded the puck over goaltender James Reimer to give the Lightning their first lead of the game.

The Bolts clung to their 3-2 lead most of the remainder of the period. They did their best to just keep dumping the puck out of their zone. They did make a few sloppy plays, but Vasilevskiy was there to bail them out.

With just over two minutes remaining in regulation, Lilleberg contributed again! This time, he passed to Corey Perry who recognized that they had the Senators caught on a line change. Guentzel was streaking in alone. Perry got him the puck, and Jake made no mistake, giving his team a 4-2 lead with 2:12 remaining.

And that was all she wrote. The Lightning extend their point streak to 7 games. They tie the Buffalo Sabres with 96 points, but the Bolts are in first for now since they have a game in hand. Buffalo plays tonight.

Three Stars

1. Emil Lilleberg: Game winning goal, 2 assists

2. Charle-Edouard D'Astous: 1 goal, 2 assists

3. Brandon Hagel: 1 goal, 1 assist

Up Next

The Lightning are right back at it tomorrow at Benchmark International in game four of this seven-game home-stand. They take on former captain Steven Stamkos and his surging Nashville Predators in a 5pm start time.