By Michael Wax
The Lightning bounced back from their disappointing loss last night with crazy 4-0 win over Florida in the second half of their back-to-back.
Here are three things we saw from the win:
Depth
The game's first two goals were from guys that fans would easily recognize: Kucherov and Guentzel. But the 3-0 goal was from someone who deserves a lot more praise this year: Mitchell Chaffee.
Out with the second power-play unit, Chaffee was a consistently moving chess piece before making his way to the front of the neck. He got a deflection on Anthony Cirelli's shot and followed up on his deflection to pot the rebound.
That goal was Chaffee’s seventh goal year, putting him in six among all lightning skaters and just one goal back of Nick Paul. For someone who had good games but couldn’t reliably string together solid performances, his presence in the middle six this year has been very comforting.
The Battle of Florida
What a ridiculous game.
After an intensely chippy game yesterday, which included injuries to multiple lightning players, there was reason to believe that the two teams would be even feistier in this game. Although the game was chippy early on, things really kicked into overdrive when Nikita Kucherov and Matthew Tkachuk went knee on knee late in the first period. Tkachuk was in excruciating pain getting off the ice (he would return), while Kucherov was assessed a five-minute major penalty and a game misconduct.
Things continued to heat up in the second period, with multiple post-whistle shenanigans and dust-ups after relatively clean hits. This game got out of control very quickly, and the refs did what they could to minimize the injury potential. At the end of the day, the Lightning were put on multiple 5-on-3s and that aforementioned five-minute major.
The holiday break comes just at the right time for the Bolts, who just took a beating over the last 48 hours and suffered quite a few injuries in the process.
Jolly Jonas
The holidays are here, and what better way for backup goaltender Jonas Johansson to celebrate them with a phenomenal performance?
As mentioned in the last point, this game went off the rails very quickly. With much time spent on the power play or shorthanded, the Lightning needed to rely on their goaltender in a carnival game. Thankfully, Johansson was up to the task for someone who has not played all that much this season (this was just his sixth start).
Johansson would stop all 36 Panther shots for his fourth victory of the season, easily his most calm and poised game in a moment at a time when the Lightning desperately needed a goaltender with calm and poise.
Aside from the very heart, stopping moment, where he left the net and turned the puck over, in which he quickly got back and made sure Florida didn’t break the ice, Johansson was exactly what the Lightning needed tonight.
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