On Presidents’ Day as host of one of the final matches during a healthy slate of NHL play, the Tampa Bay Lightning will be searching for some serious bounceback against the Ottawa Senators.
Lightning coach Jon Cooper and captain Steven Stamkos hope Monday’s tilt at least has a different outcome than Saturday’s home-ice embarrassment against the Florida Panthers.
For the first 24 seconds against the arch-rival Panthers, Brandon Hagel sparked the home crowd and appeared to set the tone as the postseason-pursuing Lightning led 1-0 after the first shift.
However, the Atlantic Division-leading Panthers erupted for nine straight goals — netting six in the first 21:37 of one-sided action — and skated roughshod in the 9-2 win.
They scored their most goals ever in a road game and were obviously better in all aspects of the matchup, according to the Tampa Bay coach.
“Listen, for (24) seconds it was a hell of a game for the home fans,” Cooper said. “After that, the better team clearly won tonight. They just outskated us, they won puck battles, won the special-team war — if there’s a TV-timeout war they probably won that, too.
“For 59 minutes and 36 seconds, one team was better than the other. Does that make them a better team than us? I don’t think so. But tonight they were the better team, so you’ve got to give them a ton of credit. The harder we tried, the worse it got.”
The humiliating loss ended the Lightning’s eight-game home winning streak and featured a combined 180 penalty minutes — 90 by each side.
Stamkos, whose top line with Brayden Point and Nikita Kucherov was a combined minus-11 Saturday, said it is up to the squad to move forward.
“It’s the next game that will answer that,” the captain replied when asked how much team momentum was excised in the seven-goal setback. “I’ve been on both sides of these types of nights. … But the response will see where we are.
“We know how we have to respond after an embarrassing loss like that.”
After winning four straight games, the Senators have dropped consecutive matches to the Anaheim Ducks and Chicago Blackhawks, two of the bottom three sides in the Western Conference.
Against Chicago, Tim Stutzle scored in a two-point night and Jakob Chychrun also found the net, but Chicago’s Jason Dickinson scored the game-winner with 1:52 left to hand Ottawa a second straight setback, 3-2, to a non-playoff club.
Since management fired coach D.J. Smith on Dec. 18, the club has managed to go 11-12-2 in the 25 games under interim coach Jacques Martin — better production than the previous 26 games with Smith at the helm.
Martin did not mince words when addressing the young Senators and the plight going forward.
“I was blunt, but I said I’m an old man and I’ve been in this league for 35 years, I can tell you right now if you don’t make a commitment about playing without the puck, you’re never going to win,” Martin said. “(I told them) you’ve got great skill and great talent so it’s up to you. At some point, you’ve got to learn lessons from game-to-game.”
The teams have split two contests in Canada’s capital thus far — Ottawa winning 5-2 on Oct. 15, the Lightning 6-4 on Nov. 4. The final two will be played in Tampa.
–Field Level Media
