Tonight was brutal for the Tampa Bay Lightning. They played a good 15 minutes of hockey before being taken over by the Pittsburgh Penguins for the second game in a row. They came out with jump, and then went flat. Rookie goalie Andrei Vasilevskiy, who for the second game in a row was the best Lightning player on the ice, appeared to be the only one participating as the Penguins tilted the ice further and further towards him as the game progressed.
Coach Cooper agreed that the team’s performance was unacceptable, saying, “It’s extremely disappointing to give up 48 shots in your home building in a playoff game. I just feel bad for the kid that he's keeping us in there and we're not finding a way to bail him out. We have to be better as a group in front of him. He was probably the obvious bright spark in tonight's game.”
The Pens have both outplayed and outshot the Lightning in the last two games. Tonight, Pittsburgh had 48 shots on goal to the Lightning’s 28, and in Game 2 the Pens had 41 SOG to the Bolts' 21.That’s 89 shots to Tampa Bay's 49, and that's just not good.
In the series so far, the Penguins have outshot the Lightning 124 to 69. Let that sink in for a bit. There's more to the game then shots on goal, but this stat has been crucially telling in the past two games.
The first goal of last night's game was scored by the Penguins with 10 seconds left to go in the 2nd. A bad turnover by the Lightning gave the Pens the opportunity they had been looking for.
Early in the 3rd, Phil Kessel gave the Penguins a 2-0 lead, but a mere 14 seconds later Lightning forward Tyler Johnson answered back, making it 2-1 Pens. For a few minutes it seemed as if the Lightning might rebuild their momentum, but that wasn't the case, as the Pens went on to score 2 more goals within minutes of one another. The first was a PP goal by Penguins’ captain Sydney Crosby, who until the series' last game hadn’t scored in 8 games; Crosby has come to life in the past couple of games.
The game-winning goal came courtesy of Chris Kunitz.
With a minute and 46 left in the 3rd, Ondrej Palat made it a 4-2 game — too little, too late.
Neither of these teams got to the Eastern Conference Final on accident. They both earned it. The Lightning have just had some trouble with puck possession the past couple of games. Looking back to last year’s playoffs, they were down 3 games to 1 against Detroit and then they took off. The Lightning play well under pressure. Will that extend to Game 4 on Friday?
The Bolts need to find a way to break through the Penguins’ defense. They've also got to rediscover their desire. Game 5 could become a challenge when they're back in Pittsburgh, and the Pens are driven to head to the Stanley Cup Finals for the first time since 2009.
The season is far from over, but we haven't seen the Lightning's best game in this series. Part of it can be attributed to injuries — missing Steven Stamkos, missing Ryan Callahan for Game 2 and now not having Ben Bishop. (Though I think if both he and Vasilevskiy had been on the goal together tonight, the Pens still would have won.)
The rest of the guys need to play with the same desperation they did in the first 10 minutes of this game. Game 4 would be a really good time for their best game to show up. They'll need to dig deep both individually and collectively on Friday night.
Crosby and Kessel have been star players for the Pens. The Lightning's star players need to step up. Fans will be expecting it in Game 4. Being down one game is nothing to panic about, but there have been some disturbing trends in the last couple of matches.
When the Pens find that speed game, they are just on another level. It's scary.
Game 4 of the best-of-seven series will be played on Friday at Amalie Arena at 8 p.m.
This article appears in May 19-26, 2016.