By Michael Wax
The Lightning blew a 3-0 lead early in the game, and saw seven goals against in a 7-6 OT loss to the Columbus Blue Jackets on Thursday night.
Here are three things we saw from the loss:
900 Club
One week after Andrei Vasilevskiy joined the 300-win club, his Russian counterpart joined another exclusive club.
With his assist on Brayden Point's game-opening goal. Nikita Kucherov joined the 900-point club. Kucherov became the 128th player in NHL history to record 900 points, the third member to do so while in a lightning uniform, joining Steven Stamkos and Martin St. Louis.
Kucherov would also record point number 901 with another assist on Brandon Hagel’s goal to make it 2-0.
There might be a point in time this season when Kucherov catches up to and passes St. Louis's 953 points in a Lightning uniform for second place all-time among Lightning skaters. He may even hit 1000 points should the cards fall correctly. But to hit this tremendous milestone so early in the season speaks volumes about Kucherov’s excellence and how he improves his teammates.
Backup Plan?
The Lightning might need to have a serious conversation about their backup goaltending situation.
Up 3-0 in this game, the Lightning eventually found themselves tied and trailing at point thanks to some ill-advised goaltending from Jonas Johansson. Johansson was beaten four times in the second period, three of which were point-blank opportunities that he saw all the way. All in all, Johansson allowed five goals that he saw all the way.
Johansson has now allowed at least five goals in all three starts he's had this season. Seeing as the Lightning cannot have Andrei Vasilevskiy starting 65–70 times a season, either Johansson needs to figure it out quickly, or the Lightning need to explore new potential backup options.
Defense Optional
Now that the goaltending has been discussed, it’s time to focus on the defense. Coming into this game, the defense had actually been fantastic over the past three games, allowing three goals in three games and minimizing its mistakes. In this one, it was anything but.
There were a multitude of defensive mistakes that allowed the Blue Jackets breakaway opportunities and odd-man rushes, many of which Johansson was able to stop. Ultimately, the defensive pairing of Ryan McDonagh and Erik Cernak had their worst game as a duo in this second go around, while Emil Lilleberg and Nick Perbix continued their struggles on the bottom pair.
This could have very well been a one-off, but it featured a calamity of errors that all seemed to make a straightforward path for the Lightning all the more difficult and ended up resulting in their defeat.
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