4
0
Lightning win weird/terrible game. Let us never speak of it again.
BUF-5
TB-6
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed five goals on 32 shots for the win. He was absolutely horrible for 40 minutes before raising the forcefield to secure the win in the final frame.
First Period
5:01 TB Paul (19), (McDonagh, Hagel)
5:17 BUF Dahlin (11), (McLeod, Benson)
5:53 TB Raddysh (4), (Girgensons)
8:20 BUF Tuch (24), (unassisted)
17:09 BUF Krebs (5), (McLeod, Benson)
Second Period
0:58 TB Guentzel (30), (Cernak, Kucherov)
9:35 BUF Thompson (31), (Dahlin, Peterka)(PP)
12:40 BUF Peterka (19), (unassisted)
17:43 TB Guentzel (31), (Point, Paul)
18:46 TB Guentzel (32), (Hagel, Raddysh)(PP)
Third Period
1:40 TB Bjorkstrad (17), (Gourde, Kucherov)
Jake Guentzel and Oliver Bjorkstrand were the game’s first and second stars.
Yeah… I hated most of that. You had Hedman missing the last 43 minutes of hockey with an injury. Vasilevskiy looking like a GD sieve, which was aided by defensemen running into each other and falling down and your MVP caliber player giving away pucks in his own end. And for that last thing? Yep. Kucherov got benched for the end of the Second Period. That was a s**t show, regardless of the outcome. It’s like after a big trade and getting a quick early goal the Lightning thought the game was over and switched off completely mentally. Not good enough.
The trade ultimately proved to be the margin of victory with Bjorkstrand and Gourde figuring in the GWG. The deal immediately improves the Lightning’s forecheck and finishing while I think they’re also banking on Gourde’s position flexibility and ability to play center to let them flex Paul back out to wing to better use his size. The Lightning are still an undersized team with some heavier groups in the conference, so that may explain the idea of recalling Logan Brown once rosters expand. With less than 24 hours to go and roughly 800K in cap space at the moment, there’s always the possibility Julien BriseBois finds an underutilized bigger winger like Paul to try to acquire too.
Gage Goncalves was -2 with 2 penalty minutes and 2 hits in 11:07.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
