3
0
Slump hits three games.
PIT-4
TB-2
Andrei Vasilevskiy allowed three goals on 28 shots for the loss.
First Period
9:06 TB Stamkos (10), (Hedman, Kucherov)
12:33 TB Jeannot (5), (Sergachev, Kucherov)(PP)
Second Period
8:53 PIT Crosby (14), (Guentzel)
19:24 PIT O’Conner (2), (Malkin, Letang)
Third Period
2:49 PIT Carter (1), (Nieto, Pettersson)
18:52 PIT Jarry (1), (unassisted)(EN)
Steven Stamkos was the game’s third star.
When teams go on a losing streak like this as well as a scoring slump (4 goals in 3 games) there’s a tendency to feel like the sky is falling. This is the second three game losing streak the team’s gone on this season, but I assure you this feels more like a slump than a structural catastrophe. With the roster the Lightning have, if they continue to outshoot a team 4:3 like they did tonight, and have a 3:2 advantage in xG at 5’s, and have a 2:1 advantage in odd man rushes, they’re going to win the wild supermajority of games. But, tonight, they built the 2-0 lead and had a half dozen chances to get it to 3-0 and they didn’t bear down. Pittsburgh then converts the only three odd man chances they got the rest of the way into goals. It’s a cruel sport and yes you have to work to try to get the odd man chances against down to zero, but really it’s a matter of not scoring situational goals right now. They were pretty much even at 5’s against Colorado but got beat on special teams. They were wildly better than Arizona all game possession wise but could barely buy a goal against the Coyotes. And, tonight, they’re at almost 72% on the MoneyPuck Deserve to Win meter and end up getting humiliated by a goalie goal in a tight loss.
The big key now is not to overreact and start playing outside the system and adopting more bad habits. Trust there’s some more puck luck coming your way when you’re doing mostly the right things because, honestly, the Lightning have looked as good possession-wise lately at 5’s as they have in a long time. At some point that process has to bear fruit.
Alex Barre-Boulet had 3 shots and 2 hits in 13:02.
Darren Raddysh had 1 shot, 1 hit, and 3 blocked shots in 20:35.
Cole Koepke was -1 with 1 shot and 1 hit in 5:10.
Box score and extended statistics from NHL.com.
