The Tampa Bay Lightning lost in overtime Sunday night, 4-3. They are now down a game to the Montreal Canadiens in the first round of the Stanley Cup Playoffs.
The Bolts started overtime down a man because of a penalty late in regulation time.
After the game, Head Coach Jon Cooper said it’s tough to win when the team is killing so many penalties.
“That is extremely disappointing in the way we, you know, listen, conducted ourselves in the, in the amount of penalties we took. Now, let’s be honest, what they would go 3-for-6 (on the power play), whatever it was. So if you’re going to kill penalties off at 50%, then you’re probably not gonna last very long,” Cooper said, “But if you’re killing penalties off at 50% when you only give up 2, so it’s 1-for-2. You know, okay, well, maybe you can survive. But you can’t let that happen. So that’s on us. I, we, there’s no excuses, nothing.”
The Bolts gave up three short-handed goals, including the game-winner 1:22 into overtime.
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In the locker room after the game, forward Brandon Hagel took part of the blame for the loss.
“Yeah, I mean, we knew they had a good power play. We’re going to execute on a penalty kill. It’s pretty simple, I think. Starts with myself, starts with [Anthony] Cirelli. It’s our job to kill penalties off and we didn’t do that,” Hagel said.
Hagel had two goals, but it wasn’t enough for the Lightning.
The Habs’ overtime goal was forward Juraj Slafkovsky’s third goal of the game.
In the locker room after the loss, defenseman Ryan McDonagh said his team needs to take fewer penalties.
“The chippiness is going to be there all series. It’s, you know, the stick penalties and fractions and high stick stuff that. That’s what you got to be accountable for. And, you know, they’re all penalties that the refs had to call. So, we’ve got to do a better job,” McDonagh said.
Game two is in Tampa Tuesday night.
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