Six games into the season, the Lightning look like a frustrated team.
Maybe they’ve deserved more, but their game has shown a lot of holes, and following Saturday’s 3-2 loss in Columbus they’ve lost five of their first six games in their worst start under coach Jon Cooper.
The Lightning (1-3-2) entered Nationwide Arena for the last game of a four-game road trip having earned four of a possible six points following a win in Boston and overtime losses at Washington and Detroit.
But Saturday ended with the Lightning unable to score an equalizer in more than two minutes of 6-on-5 play during which forward Jake Guentzel broke his stick slamming it against the goal post after he believed he had been slew-footed in the paint.
Brandon Hagel, however, might be the most frustrated Lightning player. A 35-goal scorer last season, he has no goals this year. On Saturday, he had nine shot attempts, four on goal.
The Lightning certainly weren’t whole without star right wing Nikita Kucherov for the second straight game due to illness, but his absence wasn’t why they lost.
Offensively, the Lightning are a certified mess. They’ve been outshot in five of six games and had just nine shots on goal through two periods Saturday. Their only two 5-on-5 goals the past two nights came from defensemen, and they haven’t received a 5-on-5 goal from a forward in eight regulation periods.
“I think it’s just a mentality,” forward Oliver Bjorkstrand said. “When you get the puck in the zone, just finding different spots on the ice where you can get traffic, bodies to the net. And then the guy who has the puck just has to have a shooting mentality.”
Anthony Cirelli’s power-play goal gave Tampa Bay a 2-1 lead with 3:38 left in the first period, and despite a middle 20 minutes in which they were outshot 14-3 goaltender Jonas Johansson kept the Lightning in the game. Tied going into the third, Columbus’ Kirill Marchenko scored 75 seconds into the period, and Tampa Bay couldn’t score down the stretch.
“We’ve got urgency when we’re down,” said Lightning defenseman Ryan McDonagh. “We need to have that urgency when we’re up in games, too, and just continue to get closer to playing a 60-minute game.”
Losing gas in the second
Puck possession was the story of a second period that saw Columbus take control as the Lightning spent an overwhelming majority of the period hemmed in their own end, which made even getting line changes a physical test.
“I think we have spurts in there where we’re really playing on all cylinders, putting the pressure on them,” McDonagh said. “We get the lead there, and then we take our foot off the gas and allow them to pretty much have us in [our own end] an entire period there. And it’s tough to rebuild and respond like that.”
Shot attempts in the period were lopsided, with Columbus holding a 27-11 advantage. And maybe playing on back-to-back days started to kick in. In any event, the Lightning looked a step slow in the final two periods.
For the second straight night, it took the Lightning more than 13 minutes into a period to record their first shot on goal, finally coming from Cirelli with 6:11 left in the second. The Blue Jackets tied the game on the ensuing rush when defenseman Damon Sevenson found open space above the hashes.
Johansson gave Bolts a chance
You couldn’t have blamed Johansson for getting spooked Saturday. In his last game in Columbus 11 months ago, he allowed seven goals in an overtime loss that was one of the Lightning’s worst games of the season.
But Johansson was the biggest reason Tampa Bay had a chance to win Saturday, particularly during a second period in which he faced constant pressure.
Johansson made a pair of remarkable saves late in the period in the final moments of a Columbus power play. After Hagel turned the puck over in the neutral zone, creating a 3-on-1 rush the other way, Johansson made a pad save on Boone Jenner’s initial shot and then stopped Adam Fantilli’s quick rebound.
One would think a play like that would give the Lightning momentum, but the Blue Jackets took the lead just 1:15 into the third.
A matter of details
The Lightning had every reason to push going into the third, but Marchenko’s go-ahead goal was fueled by a bad pass by Hagel, who was trying to find Brayden Point in front but instead was intercepted by Blue Jackets defenseman Zach Werenski.
Marchenko was trailing and took a pass from Dmitri Voronkov skating toward the front of the net. Hagel tried unsuccessfully to poke the puck away in front, and Gage Goncalves failed to take an inside angle on Marchenko on the backcheck. Johansson couldn’t do much about Marchenko’s open look from below the right hash.
“It’s tough,” Cooper said. “We’re on a four-game road trip with multiple back-to-backs. We’ve gotten points in all the games, and we thought, we have a good third, we’ll get a point out of this. And it was unfortunate, bad details on our track, and it’s in the back of the net.”
