By Michael Wax
Huge congratulations to goaltender Matt Tomkins, who picked up the first win of his NHL career during the Lightning's 5-3 victory against the Montréal Canadiens. Tomkins stopped 22/25 Montreal shots, the majority of which came in the third period, to complete one of the best comeback stories you'll hear.
The 2012 7th round pick from the Chicago Blackhawks had spent time in the American Hockey League, the East Coast Hockey League, and overseas for over a decade before signing with the Lightning this past off-season. An injury to Andrei Vasilevskiy opened the door for Tomkins to get his shot in the NHL, and now he has his name in Lightning record books and the moment he'll remember forever.
Here's what the lines looked like:
Hagel-Point-Kucherov
Stamkos-Paul-Sheary
Jeannot-Cirelli-Eyssimont
ABB-Glendening-Motte
Hedman-Cernak
Sergachev-Raddysh
de Haan-Bogosian
Tomkins
Here are three things that we noticed from the game.
White Hot
Over the past three games, Nikita Kucherov has been the best player in the NHL. After five-point night against the Ottawa Senators, last Saturday, Kucherov put up another four points in one period against the Toronto Maple Leafs on Monday, and follow that up with a two point performance against the Canadiens in this game. Kucherov's first point came just 22 seconds in, as he scored the 12th fastest goal in Lightning franchise history to start a game, unleashing a nasty one-timer of a cross-crease pass from Brandon Hagel.
Kucherov started the Lightning's night with his goal, and he finished it with his assist on the 5-2 goal. Sometimes, it's not about whether your shot is picture perfect, but whether or not you can generate a rebound for one of your teammates. This was an excellent shot from Kucherov and an even better save from Sam Montembeault, but the rebound remained loose for a tap in by Nick Paul, giving Paul his second goal of the game and putting the game out of reach.
This league and its teams are driven by the superstars. It's nice to have scoring depth that can provide you with more of an opportunity to game plan, but when your superstars are performing the way that Nikita Kucherov has performed of the last three games for the Lightning, things tend to be a little bit easier for the rest of the team.
Easy E
One of the biggest shocks of the game against Toronto with the fact that Mikey Eyssimont was scratched. Eyssimont is a player that works extremely hard, and has a history of success against Toronto, so his removal from the lineup raised a lot of people's eyebrows. Inserted back in the lineup for tgis game, he showed why taking him out of the lineup with such a baffling decision.
Eyssimont scored the Lightning's fourth goal of the first period, a goal very similar to the goalhe had in game five of the first round last year against Toronto. He was denied on a breakaway later on a fantastic save from Montembeault, and his overall physicality was something that the Lightning really needed in this game. Yes, him taking a penalty at the latter stage of the first period wasn't the best timing after he had scored his goal. Overall, he proved he is a player that can provide you with a multitude of skills throughout the lineup, and his presence is too valuable to take out in the future.
Man Down
One big problem in this game was the amount of penalties that the Lightning took. With two power plays against in each period, a penalty kill that was already stretched thin with the early injury to Conor Sheary was forced to put in even more work. The six penalties they took were the most of the season in a single game so far, outmatching their previous high in a game (four) by quite a bit.
The PK did look really good, killing off their first five opportunities against before allowing a power-play goal to Nick Suzuki in the third period. A lot of these penalties against were stick infractions, leading one to believe that the Lightning were just extremely tired as this game progressed, with it being their second in two nights.
As long as this is a one-off occurrence, the penalty kill did its job to make sure that the game didn't get out of hand. If this becomes a common occurrence, the Lightning have much bigger things to worry about.
Final Thoughts
Was this a perfect game? No, absolutely not. But, after the tough loss against Toronto, they need a win like this to regain momentum and secure a special moment for Matt Tomkins. Their next game will be Thursday at home to Chicago, where they will face Connor Bedard for the first time in his young career.
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