The Backcheck: Bolts overcome the Rangers in a rally
For the Tampa Bay Lightning, measuring stick games are out of the question, with 17 games left in the regular season as of Thursday night. The Bolts need points because the Eastern Conference playoff race is close.
Tampa Bay knew it wouldn’t be an easy night at Amalie Arena against the New York Rangers, who have led the NHL in points percentage since the beginning of February. Furthermore, it wasn’t.
The Bolts trailed 2-0 in the first half and were searching for solutions. These answers were discovered during the next eighteen minutes in the locker room, as the Lightning came roaring back, defeating New York 6-1 in the last forty minutes to earn two crucial points and a 6-3 victory. This is how they arrived there.
Conor Sheary’s offensive-zone tripping penalty at 6:21 in the first period gave the Rangers their first power play of the game, but the Lightning penalty kill performed admirably to keep New York to zero shots on goal and force a five-on-five.
Bolts supporters had hoped that the penalty kill would give their side more momentum going forward, but the outcome was almost the reverse.
With little offensive zone time in the last 11 minutes of the game, the Lightning were only able to generate three shots on goal and gave up back-to-back goals to trail 2-0 going into the first intermission.
With 6:02 left in the first period, Artemi Panarin gave the Rangers the lead as the team skated into the Bolts’ zone on a 2-on-1. Panarin then beat Andrei Vasilevskiy with a one-timer to make it 1-0, his 36th goal of the season.
With less than three minutes gone in the first, Jack Roslovic broke into the offensive zone and cycled the puck down low to Mika Zibanejad, who passed to the slot, where Braden Schneider was waiting to put a one-timer past Vasilevskiy’s five-hole, making it 2-0 for New York.
Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov, who were on the ice for both goals against, went to the locker room for the first intermission feeling let down and knowing they should have done better.
With that serving as fire, the dynamic combination combined for 11 points over the following two periods, with Kucherov contributing five assists and a goal of his own and Point collecting a hat trick.
At 12:41 of the second period, Point made a brilliant move to intercept a pass from Jonny Brodzinski at the New York blue line and give the puck to Kucherov as the two players went 2-on-1 into the offensive zone, putting the Lightning up.
Kucherov, who has been excellent all season, placed a wonderful back pass directly onto Point’s tape. Point scored his 34th goal of the year to put the game ahead 2-1. The shot went over Shesterkin’s glove.
