Heading out west at the beginning of the week, the Tampa Bay Lightning were exuding some confidence. Having won 8 of 11 games in December, they were riding kind of high. They had hoped for a repeat of their earlier trip in the Pacific time zone. In early December, the team won three of four out west. Their only loss was to Edmonton by a score of 2-1. Who knew then that score would turn out to be prophetic for the current west coast set of games. In this three game set, the Bolt lost to the lowly San Jose Sharks by that same score on Thursday. Last night, in an effort to turn around this trip, they lost another 2-1 west coast game. This time to the Los Angeles Kings.
Early Signs Are Good
One way a team can turn around its fortunes is to score early. That’s exactly what the Lightning did to the Kings. Just after the one minute mark in the game, Captain Victor Hedman blasted a shot from the point. This seeing eye puck glanced off the stick on a King defender past their goalie Darcy Kuemper. Before everyone was in their seats, the Bolts enjoyed a 1-0 lead.
What a rip 💪 pic.twitter.com/YrkB1zA3ce
— Tampa Bay Lightning (@TBLightning) January 5, 2025
Tampa was beating Los Angeles to most of the loose pucks especially in the neutral zone. To their credit, despite playing a bit back on their heels, the Kings answered with a goal of their own. As the game was about eight minutes old, Kings defenseman Mikey Anderson slapped a shot off a faceoff win. The puck went past Andrei Vasilevskiy to tie the game at one.
Was fair to say that despite the home team tying the game, the visitors from Tampa were tilting the ice in their favor. They outshot the Kings in all three periods and ended the game with a 34-21 shot advantage. Kuemper did make some point blank saves to keep his team in the game.
Strong Effort Leading to a West Coast Loss
In the history of the Lightning franchise, west coast trips have been a stumbling block. Playing on the road in Los Angeles is difficult for any NHL team. The Lightning though were playing as well a road game as a team could.
Aside from Kuemper, the team in front of him played very good team defense, blocking 17 shot attempts by the Lightning. The Kings also outhit the Lightning 36 to 25. It seemed that the Kings challenged every entrance into their zone hard. This made things difficult for the Bolts to maintain any kind of offensive structure.
Eventually, the Kings’ Adrian Kempe broke the tie. With a bit over 5 minutes left in the game, an errant pass by Brayden Point led to this goal. Point tried to hit Nick Perbix at the high point. What Point didn’t see is that Perbix began to cheat in on the play. So, the puck got past Perbix and Alex Turcotte of the Kings beat Perbix to the puck.
Skating in on Vasilevskiy, Turcotte was met by the Lightning’s Emil Lilleberg who stood him up. Somehow Turcotte flipped the puck behind him to a trailing Kempe who blasted the puck past Vasilevskiy for the final score. Another ominous 2-1 west coast loss.
Three Stars
- Darcy Kuemper – Saved 33 of 34 shots he faced for a .970 save percentage
- Mikey Anderson – 1 goal, 5 blocked shots
- Victor Hedman – 1 goal, 4 blocked shots
What’s Next
Last game of this three game west coast trip in Anaheim tonight. Puck drops at 8:00pm
