Background: last night the Lightning, off the back of a Saturday night win in Ottawa, rolled into Toronto and smoked the Maple Leafs for the first period, hanging four goals on Ilya Samsonov and chasing him for Joseph Woll, with Nikita Kucherov scoring two and setting up two more. Proud of a job well done, the Bolts then yawned, wrapped themselves in cozy blankets, and went to sleep for the rest of the game, allowing the Leafs to roar back and eventually win the game 6-5 in overtime.
Here are my thoughts on the game, in no coherent order.
1. Nikita Kucherov is a machine. He looked insane driving play in the first, dancing around defenders and zipping passes all over the place. The Lightning's four consecutive first period goals were all his: he scored two and set up the other two with primary assists. This was a master class. Unfortunately four points per period is unsustainable, and the Leafs were able to cover him the rest of the way, which caused major trouble for the Bolts, since nobody else could get going. Brandon Hagel broke through to force overtime with less than three minutes left, but by that time the Lightning had given the game away.
2. Losing games in which they have lead the Leafs by a 4-1 score is more addictive to the Bolts than super-crack.
3. Losing in overtime is even more addictive than that.
4. Consider for a moment that the Lightning games have gone past regulation four times, and they're lost in overtime in every single one. They haven't even MADE IT to a shootout. They surrender a goal at 3-on-3 within five minutes every time, never scoring once. Once the puck is dropped in OT, they immediately lose possession, and fans watch the Lightning players spend then next three-odd minutes chasing around before inevitably letting an opposing player have an absolute gift basket of a scoring chance. How are they this bad in OT? Even the San Jose Sharks have made it to a shootout.
5. How can a team be both dominant when up a man (33.3% power play - 2nd in the NHL) and excellent when down a man (87.9% penalty killing - 6th in the NHL) and still be so hopeless when both teams are down two men?
6. Tyler Motte was back from his broken finger-- this was really my first look at him as a Bolt since I remember nothing of his performance in Game One before he got hurt. He looked really good, especially battling deep in the Leafs' end during the penalty kill. As much as I was cheering for Waltteri Merelä to succeed, the Lightning are much better with Motte.
7. What made NO sense was inserting Motte and scratching Mikey Eyssimont instead of Austin Watson. I understand the urge to keep a fighter like Watson in the lineup. Hockey media was been frothing at the mouth about how soft the Leafs are, so the expectation may have been that the Leafs would try and flip the narrative with some physical play. That wasn't the case at all. Ryan Reaves, who is always happy to make menacing statements in the media but has been dead weight on the ice, was not noticeable, and refused to make eye contact with Tanner Jeannot during their only notable interaction.
With respect to Watson and his role, he had little impact on the game. He played three and a half minutes. The Lightning missed Eyssimont's hustle and grind. Mikey scored against Ottawa and got sat against the Leafs. That's ridiculous. Unless there's an injury we haven't heard about, this was a lineup gaff.
Don't you see the irony? By inserting the enforcer into the lineup, the Lightning became way EASIER to play against.
8. Speaking of the Leafs being soft, they seem to play hard enough against the Lightning when the going gets tough. And the Lightning? They let the consensus softest team in the league tear them up in the second and third period. The Leafs scored EIGHT SECONDS APART TO TAKE THE LEAD. The Lightning had no pushback once the Leafs started pressing.
9. Playing a great first and collapsing in the second has been the Lightning's bugaboo all season. Every night they talk about playing a full sixty minutes. Well, they still haven't figured it out.
In a first intermission interview, Brandon Hagel told Gabby Shirley they would have to keep pressing the Leafs and playing the same way, but that's not the answer. The Lightning need to realize that okay, we've just embarrassed this team. Their coach is probably in the dressing room right now screaming his head off, and these guys are gonna come at us like crazy meth-beavers in the next period, and we'll have to adjust on the fly to whatever they bring. The Lightning seemed to think the second would be exactly the same as the first, and within moments they were on the back foot against a pissed-off opponent. The Leafs grabbed the momentum and it was goodbye to that three-goal lead.
"Playing the same way" is a recipe for failure with this team.
10. A secondary power play assist notwithstanding, Steven Stamkos didn't generate much out there. Conor Sheary was invisible. Tanner Jeannot threw some hits but was on the ice for three Leafs goals. Austin Watson had no impact. Separated from Kucherov, Alex Barré-Boulet was not noticeable.
Only one line was going. Brayden Point, Brandon Hagel, and Nikita Kucherov each played more than 22 minutes. The Lightning are becoming a one line team, or possibly even a one player team: Kucherov.
11. The Lightning have a Leafs problem, but their problems against the Leafs are reflective of the problems in all their losses this season. Inconsistent effort.
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The Bolts are in Montreal tonight to face Martin St. Louis' young squad. Matt Tomkins will probably start, and even if the Bolts are tired on the bottom end of the back-to-back, they'll at least benefit from not facing a team that unquestionably has their number. See you tonight.
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