By Michael Wax
The Lightning fell to the Montreal Canadiens, splitting their games over the past four days. Here are a few things we noticed from the loss.
Nothing Going
The Lightning were the better team for the majority of the game, pushing play and comfortably leading in shots on goal. However, they really couldn't get anything going in the Montreal zone in turns of zone time or quality shots. It was a night in which Sam Montembeault made saves, but only a few of them were quality saves. Credit to the Canadiens' defense, with 20 blocked shots.
Vasy?
Andrei Vasilevskiy has made some big-time saves recently, but one concerning trend recently has been the soft-ish goals that he's allowed. In this game, the Habs' first goal of the game was a leaky one from Vasilevskiy, who stopped the initial shot but allowed the put to trickle through before Kirby Dach put the rebound home. The big saves have kept the Lightning in games, certainly, but the leaky goals have created situations where they've had to climb higher hills to make up for mistakes.
Patty
Recently, Pat Maroon has taken some turns out of the lineup in a 4th line rottion with Perry, Bellemare, and Eyssimont. Maroon bought himself another few games within the current lineup with a solid game against Montreal, including scoring his first goal since mid-January off a beautiful cross-ice pass from Ross Colton. It's not just that his scoring has gone down this season (that goal helped), it's the lack of positive forechecking that made him so effective last season that has seemed to wither away. In order to stay in, Maroon is going to have to continue his forechecking like he did in this game, and maybe put some points on the board as well.
Three Stars
Media’s three stars
1. Montembeault (31 saves on 33 shots)
2. Matheson (1 goal)
3. Dach (1 goal)
Our three stars
1. Montembeault (31 saves on 33 shots)
2. Matheson (1 goal)
3. Drouin (1 goal)
The Lightning's next game will be against the Ottawa Senators on Thursday, March 23, at 7:00 PM ET.
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