By Michael Wax
In their first half of a Thanksgiving back-to-back, the Lightning found their way towards two points with a 3-2 OT win over the Nashville Predators on Friday afternoon.
Here are three things we saw from the win:
Powered Up
Take it back to the beginning of this season. With Steven Stamkos's departure, the Tampa Bay Lightning’s first power-play unit was tasked with finding new ways to score goals without one of the most prolific power-play goal scorers ever. In that first month, the Lightning struggled to generate opportunities, zone time, and goals with new faces and a new identity.
Since November 1, the Lightning have been the best team in the league on the power-play and had another tally thanks to Brayden Point's overtime goal in this game.
Point has been one of the driving factors in what’s made Tampa’s power play so successful since the beginning of the month, with his six goals on the power play leading the league since that date, breaking the tie with at the aforementioned Stamkos. Tampa is also operating at over 34% on the power play since the beginning of the month, tops in the league.
The power play is finding its way again, and it’s a big improvement from the first month of the season.
Backup Plan
Plenty can be said about Jonas Johansson this year. The 29-year-old backup came into today’s game struggling mightily, allowing at least five goals in all three starts so far this year. It was even speculation about Matt Tomkins, who was called up earlier in the day, getting the start instead of Johansson. Instead, Johansson turned in one of his best performances in a Lightning uniform to quiet the noise for now.
Johansson stopped 29/31 Nashville shots to give the Lightning plenty of opportunities to win. His biggest save of the game came at the end of the first period, where he stopped Colton Sissons on a breakaway to keep it at 1-0 for Nashville.
Plenty of times this season, Johansson has been thrown into the fire, fair or not. Most of the time, he has not excelled. In this one, however, he displayed the calmness and poise that the Lightning had been looking for when they originally signed him.
On Fire 🔥
Anthony Cirelli continues his career-best season.
Once again, Cirelli saw himself on the goal scoring sheet, this time in the second period thanks to a shorthanded goal to tie the game at one. A bit of a lucky bounce, those types of plays always seem to find their way to the back of the net when you’re on a hot streak.
That goal gave Cirelli seven goals in his last eight games, and he was an overturned goal against Washington last game away from an eight game goal streak. There was plenty of talk this year about the depth of the lightning still being a concern, but Cirelli taking that next step has made everyone’s job just a little bit easier, allowing the offense to breathe.
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