By Jake Ricker
The Lightning faced off against the Chicago Blackhawks, looking to bounce back after a long week-long road trip in which they lost 3 out of 4 games. Here are a few things we noticed from the Lightning's 4-1 loss to the Chicago Blackhakws.
Johansson
With Andrei Vasilevskiy out with an illness, it was Jonas Johansson drawing in net and EBUG Kyle Konin backing him up. Johansson played decent in this game, especially considering he had to make some very difficult saves when the Lightning defense fell apart. Johansson finished the night with 16 saves on 19 shots. While the stat line isn't great, Johansson kept the Lightning in this game when things started to fall apart.
Power Play
The Lightning power play, for the most part, has been very good this season, ranking 5thin in the NHL. However, tonight, the Lightning failed to capitalize on any of their chances, including a 4-minute double minor. Credit where Credit is due. Arvid Söderblom made some great saves, but the Lightning have to find ways to change things up and convert on their chances.
More than likely, this is a one-off night for the power play, especially considering how good it's been. However, unfortunately, for Lightning, it has faltered at times, and when it does, it struggles.
Rough stretch
This has not been a good few games for the Lightning, that's no secret, and it has been unfortunate timing with a lot of the losses coming to divisional opponents; however, the Lightning still remain in a playoff spot and with games in hand. There's no question it needs to turn around soon, but this is a group that knows how to get better.
Just take some of the post-game comments. Ryan McDonagh said at the end of his presser, "We will get ourselves out of this hole." Also latter saying
"it is definitely a frustrating feeling in here. We should feel frustrated, but, at the same time, we still have enough looks and did some things in that game where we could have gotten something out of it. It didn't happen, so, at this point, we've got to learn from it, and we've got to get better here. It's obviously a tough stretch, and we're going through a lot of adversity, and we're getting tested here. It's a good test for us because it can go one way or the other, and we've got to stick together and get out of this together"
The leaders in this locker room, like McDonagh, know what it takes, and as Jon Cooper mentioned in his presser, there is no magic formula, they just have to keep pushing. While frustrating, the sky is not falling in Tampa Bay... Yet.
Next, the Lightning will welcome the Los Angeles Kings in the second of their five-game home stand. Puck drop is scheduled for 7 PM EST on Thursday.
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