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Lightning begin season series against Columbus as last year’s ended: with Brayden Point crushing Blue Jackets dreams.
TB-3
CBJ-2 (OT)
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed 2 goals on 25 shots for the victory.
First Period
0:21 CBJ Bjorkstrand (2), (Domi)
Second Period
16:33 TB Coleman (2), (McDonagh, Gourde)
17:56 TB Joseph (2), (McDonagh, Cirelli)
Third Period
0:47 CBJ Foligno (2), (Bjorkstrand, Atkinson)(PP)
Overtime
1:56 TB Point (2), (Hedman, Stamkos)
Brayden Point and Ryan McDonagh were the game’s first and third stars.
That was a painfully boring game to watch, with neither team surrendering scoring chances all that easily. There’s more drama off the ice with Tortorella stapling Dubois to the bench than there was for most of this game.Indeed, what the Lightning gave Columbus largely came from self-inflicted wounds, be it from Hedman’s opening shift turnover of the penalty box stylings of Jan Rutta. If it wasn’t painfully obvious what the Lightning’s weak point was from looking at the roster, a review of the tape will again scream “RHD!” after tonight. There’s no urgency to fix it immediately given the team’s still winning regular season games (3-0-0 doesn’t stink) but it’ll have to be addressed by the deadline for this team to do anything in the postseason.
Can we start a petition to get Mathieu Joseph back up on Cirelli’s line? Not that I don’t get a nostalgic kick out of watching Tyler Johnson flail scoring chances flaccidly, but young man has two goals in three games.
Mitchell Stephens had 1 shot and 1 hit in 7:52 and was 80% on 5 draws.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
