Tampa Bay coach Jon Cooper will look for more urgency from his Lightning when they wrap up 2023 with a pair of back-to-back home matches against Eastern Conference opposition.
The first matchup will take place Saturday night when the conference-leading New York Rangers arrive for their first of three contests this season against the Lightning. The Montreal Canadiens will follow on Sunday.
Against the in-state rival Florida Panthers on Wednesday night, the Lightning were flat from the outset, falling behind 2-0 through two periods before Nikita Kucherov made it a one-goal match with almost a full frame to play.
But with the home side on a power play, Aleksander Barkov outworked Kucherov for puck possession near the blue line. Sam Reinhart then outmuscled star defenseman Victor Hedman for his second goal in Florida’s 3-2 win.
“What’s frustrating is how the game played out — that’s the only frustrating thing. You can’t give up a short-handed goal that ends up being the game-winner,” Cooper said. “It’s a little disappointing coming out of the break at home here to let a cross-state rival come in and beat us on our home ice.”
In sliding to 7-5-0 in December, the Lightning also had their home winning streak snapped at four and dropped to 10-4-3 on home ice.
They slipped to 7-6-3 within the conference and 3-3-3 within their division.
As for the Rangers, they lost 4-3 to the Panthers on Friday night in the first game of their sixth back-to-back set, putting them at 3-3-0 in the first half of the scenario.
The good news: Coach Peter Laviolette’s club is 5-0-0 in the second game.
Against the Panthers, New York trailed 2-0 in the latter part of the second period. However, the Rangers evened the score on goals by Artemi Panarin (team-leading 20th) and Will Cuylle in a 1:13 span.
They later tied it at 3 when Mika Zibanejad netted a short-handed goal at 12:15 of the third, but Carter Verhaeghe’s game-winner occurred 1:22 later and Florida hung on for its third straight victory.
Panarin reached 20 goals for the eighth time in his nine seasons.
Zibanejad’s 12th career shorty tied his career-best point streak at nine games (eight goals, eight assists). The Swedish forward has points in 17 of his past 18 matches (12 goals, 14 assists).
Laviolette was not happy with a five-minute major to forward Alexis Lafreniere after his head shot to Florida captain Barkov, who went to the dressing room for about 10 minutes.
The call was reviewed and reduced to a two-minute minor for an illegal check to the head.
Zibanejad scored on the ensuing penalty kill, but Verhaeghe netted the game-winner 14 seconds after the power play expired.
“You got a guy playing the puck, and he takes his head down into the play,” Laviolette said. “With no intention to hit him in the head, there should’ve been zero minutes, not two minutes. I don’t agree with the call.”
At 5-2-0 in the past seven games, the Metropolitan Division leaders are 12-5-1 away from New York and 7-4-0 against Atlantic Division foes.
The Rangers are 8-5-0 in December.
–Field Level Media
