By Michael Wax
The Lightning snapped their losing streak and streak of bad play with a 6-2 win against the Boston Bruins on Saturday night:
Here are three things we saw from the win:
Shut. Out.
Over and over again since the trade deadline, the general consensus has been that the Lightning are not doing a good enough job defensively. A mixture of missed assignments and poor turnovers have led to an increase in high-quality shots on goal for their opponents. In this case, the Lightning may have found the solution to not allowing high-danger opportunities: not allowing opportunities at all.
For the first time since 2000-01 and for the third time in franchise history, the Lightning held an opponent to 20 shots in a period of play.
During this 20 minutes of play, the Bolts saw that the best defense was continued offensive pressure, consistently hemming the Bruins in their own zone and making life difficult for Jeremy Swayman. The Lightning were even rewarded with three goals in the frame. An impressive period when you can have more goals than the opponent has shots on goal.
Is this likely to happen again? Probably not. This rare recurrence has happened once every 10ish seasons in Bolts history. But if the Lightning can play a similar type of style, and impose their will, they should be able to improve their play after a week of struggling.
Out of the Cage
Depth scoring has been a consistent concern for the Lightning all season long, but the emergence of Gage Goncalves recently has been a welcome site.
After coming into this game against Boston with goals in back-to-back games and nine points and his last 16 games, Goncalves had yet another assist against Boston. after grabbing the puck in slot, Goncalves had an opportunity for a shot on net, but dropped the puck to a charging Emil Lilleberg. Lilleberg’s shot was followed up on by Nick Paul, and gave the Lightning their first two-goal lead since the Buffalo game.
Overall, that third line was the best line for the Lightning in this game. The newfound chemistry that Björkstrand, Paul, and Goncalves all seem to have with one another is huge in getting Bjorkstrand acclimated to this team and getting Goncalves up to speed at the NHL level. The hot streak that the rookie is currently on has been a welcome site of late, really seeming to be the only one that can provide a consistent stream of offense.
Power Surge
This was certainly one of those games where, even though the power play didn’t score, it showed signs of promise.
With Nikita Kucherov back in the fold after missing time due to illness, the power play looked invigorated and was able to get a chance after chance in their two opportunities. Even though they weren’t able to score, this was more so due to the excellent play of Jeremy Swayman then it was the lack of shooting mentality that had plague the Lightning in their previous game against Philadelphia.
The Lightning had a similar power play to this Tuesday against Carolina, leading to the idea that even though this power play is still figuring things out, they’re right on the edge of finding the rhythm again. All it takes is one to bump the slump and get them back towards the leaderboard.
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