By Jake Ricker
The Tampa Bay Lightning skated in the second half of a back-to-back against the Ottawa Senators. Here is how the team looked in their third game of the regular season.
Hagel-Point-Kucherov
Jeannot-Cirelli-Eyssimont
Sheary-Paul-ABB
Watson-Glendening-Merela
Hedman-Perbix
Sergachev-Raddysh
de Haan-Cernak
Tomkins
Here are the biggest takeaways from the Lightning's 5-2 loss to the Ottawa Senators in their third game of the season.
Defense
The defense is the main issue for the Lightning. They continued to give up multiple odd-man rushes and couldn't seem to exit the defensive zone cleanly. While the Lightning have lost a lot of big pieces on the back end, this group is more than capable of playing good defense.
Hedman and Sergachev will have to lead the way to try and spark the rest of the defense. Despite the good Play of Tomkins and Johansson, the Lightning do not have Vasilevskiy in the net to bail them out when most other goalies can't.
Tomkins
Overall, Matt Tomkins played well. The 29-year-old stopped 32 of 37 shots with the last shot coming on an empty net. The inexperienced netminder made some big saves throughout this game that kept the Lightning in it at times.
However, there were a few goals that Tomkins would probably like back, specifically shots that went down low. To be fair to Tomkins, he was hung out to dry on multiple occasions, making this a much more difficult start. If Tomkins can continue to play like this, he should be a decent backup for the Bolts while Vasilevskiy recovers.
Slow Start
The Lightning did not have a good first period. Now, to be fair, they were playing in the second half of a back-to-back, but getting outshot 12-3 is not ideal. The Lightning, for the second night in a row, quickly fell behind, making a comeback difficult. Not only is this frustrating for fans to watch, but slow starts can also put a damper on a team's confidence, making the rest of the game that much harder.
Final thoughts
The defense is an issue. Way too many odd-man rushes and defensive breakdowns. The turnovers are also not making this any easier, but it's definitely the top concern for the Lightning. This is a very different defense compared to a few years ago, and this new group needs to find its footing.
Tomkins played well in his first NHL game. Despite a couple of shakey goals, he was mostly left out to dry and still made some nice stops. We are only three games into the season, so there's no need to worry just yet, but not an ideal start.
Three Stars
Our Three Stars
1. Tkachuck (2G 1A)
2. Korisalo (22SV 2 GA)
3. Jeannot (1G,1A)
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