.How’d your night go Coop? “Well i yelled at Wes McCauley and got ejected, oh and we lost 5-1” That’s probably the PG version of Coach Jon Cooper’s response following his teams 5-1 loss on March 3rd to the Pittsburgh Penguins. Well Cooper will be face to face with McCauley again tonight who is set to referee at Amalie Arena for the second night in a row. There are rumors of what was said, but we won’t get into those.
“𝙄 𝙙𝙤𝙣’𝙩 𝙠𝙣𝙤𝙬 𝙬𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙄 𝙞𝙣𝙫𝙚𝙣𝙩𝙚𝙙 𝙩𝙝𝙖𝙩 𝙝𝙖𝙙 𝙢𝙚 𝙩𝙤𝙨𝙨𝙚𝙙 𝙤𝙪𝙩.”
Jon Cooper on the @TBLightning game and getting tossed in the 2nd. pic.twitter.com/JwAVOhBCb3
— Bally Sports Florida & Bally Sports Sun (@BallySportsFL) March 4, 2022
The bright side if there is one to a 5-1 loss is, when the Tampa Bay Lightning have lost they usually don’t loss in consecutive games. Something that serves them very well especially in the playoffs. Tonight the team will face the Detroit Red Wings who lost four out of seven during a short month of February. Brian Elliott will be in net for the Lightning and Alex Nedeljkovic for the Red Wings.
Nedeljkovic and Elliott lead the way
The first period got under way and it was a back and forth affair. Neither teams goalie was giving an inch in the first. While the Bolts had more shots on goal (10-8) neither team was able to get a goal past the opposing teams goalie. Each team had one opportunity with the man advantage, but once again neither was able to get a puck into the net. Ryan McDonagh probably had the best opportunity to scorein the period, but Nedeljkovic was able to slide his pads over just in the nick of time.
Point and Fabbri keep the game close
Once again in the second period the Lightning outshot the Red Wings. This time by a slighty larger margin (19-6) the top players this period weren’t the goalies. While on the power play due to a Vlad Namestnikov tripping call, Victor Hedman rifled a shot towards Nedeljkovic. Brayden Point who was sitting in his normal spot in the slo redirected it past the Wings netminder for a 1-0 Lightning lead.
BOLTS ON THE BOARD! ⚡️
Victor Hedman fires a shot and Brayden Point redirects it in! #GoBolts pic.twitter.com/VqIe8oXnXg
— Bally Sports Florida & Bally Sports Sun (@BallySportsFL) March 5, 2022
Just over six minutes later while at even strength, Robby Fabbri would tie the game at one with only 11 shots on goal to that point. The goal was due to Elliott mishandling the rebound and Fabbri being aggresive without a whistle being blown tied the game 1-1 with just about seven minutes to go in the second. As time would tick down the score would remain tied through two periods at 1-1.
All hail Mikhail
Through nearly 10 miuntes for the period, it looked as though the third would be very similar to the first and second. At 10:21 and with only five seconds left on the power play Mikhail Sergachev gave the Lightning back the lead. The Bolts won the face-off in Detroits zone, Hedman got it over to Sergachev on the opposite point. Sergachev skated it in a couple steps sent the puck off the post and into the net.
SERGY!
Mikhail Sergachev fires from the right wing and the @TBLightning go up 2-1 over Detroit! #GoBolts pic.twitter.com/cUnfwuCFql
— Bally Sports Florida & Bally Sports Sun (@BallySportsFL) March 5, 2022
Tampa would take a 2-1 lead with just over nine minutes to play. At this point the Lightning had out-shot the Red Wings 34-18. With two seconds remaing on the clock Steven Stamkos would get in on the action. Stamkos would find an empty net and put the Bolts up 3-1.
Three Stars of the Game
1st – Mikhail Sergachev: Game winning goal
2nd – Vistor Hedman: Assisted on all three goals
3rd – Brian Elliott: only allowed 1 goal
Next Up
Sunday night March 6th the Lightning travel to the Windy City of Chicago for a 7pm face-off with the Blackhawks.
