Credit: Photo via Twitter (@TB_Lightning)

The Tampa Bay Lightning entered Friday night’s contest after a stunning game one loss that saw the Bolts blow a three-goal lead over the last 40 minutes of the game. It was the first time this Bolts team had lost a game after being up by a trio of goals, and the fans needed to shake the memory of the poor performance off immediately. That cloud, unfortunately, would not lift as Columbus’ Cam Atkinson redirected a puck past Lightning goalie Vasilevskiy to open the scoring just five minutes into game two.

Nerves were tested again less than two minutes later when an Adam Erne penalty led to a solid Blue Jackets power play that the Lightning thankfully killed, but another penalty (Ondrej Palat, hooking) led to a shorthanded situation that turned into a 2-0 lead after Zach Werenski snuck another one past Vasilevskiy with just over eight minutes left in the first.

Brayden Point attempted to wake the Lightning up by fighting Werenski, and the Bolts perked up a bit by pushing the hit count to 21-10, but the second period brought no relief as Alex Killorn — who scored a short handed goal to ignite the room in game one — put the Lightning on power play just 30 seconds into the frame. Blue Jackets forward Matt Duchene scooped up a rebound to convert the power play with 18:31 left in a second period where the Bolts looked as hapless as they did over their last 80 minutes of ice time.

Killorn atoned for his sin by cutting the lead to 3-1 with 15 minutes left in the game, but Riley Nash broke the hearts of hopeful Lightning fans when he sent a shot over Vasilevskiy’s right shoulder five minutes later. Columbus center Artemi Panarin added another goal that sent fans to the exits for what could be the last Lightning home game of what felt like a magnificent 2018-19 campaign.

A nasty sequence of events late in the third led to one Columbus penalty (Josh Anderson, two minute for roughing and a 10-min game misconduct) and a pair of Lightning penalties (Victor Hedman, 10 minute game misconduct; Kucherov, five minutes for boarding and a game misconduct), but the Bolts — along with coach Jon Cooper — will have a new set of questions to answer as the Lightning, 5-1 losers on Friday night, get ready for a their longest plane trip of the season so far.

Game three is on Sunday, April 14. Puck drop for that contest is at 7 p.m.


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This article appears in Apr 11-18, 2019.

Read his 2016 intro letter and disclosures from 2022 and 2021. Ray Roa started freelancing for Creative Loafing Tampa in January 2011 and was hired as music editor in August 2016. He became Editor-In-Chief...