The Tampa Bay Lightning embarked on their first road trip of the 2023-24 season and finished with a disappointing 0-2-1 record, leaving the team with only three points through four games to start the season. The road trip finale was on Tuesday, Oct. 17, when the team lost in overtime to the Buffalo Sabres by a score of 3-2.
The first game of the road trip started with a game against the Detroit Red Wings on Saturday, Oct. 14, leaving them with a 6-4 defeat characterized by many Lightning mistakes while also wasting a two-goal effort by Steven Stamkos. The following night (Oct. 15), they faced the Ottawa Senators, falling 5-2 as mistakes continued to affect the Lightning’s ability to play efficient hockey. Stamkos did not play due to a lower-body injury suffered the night before when he blocked a shot late in the third period.
The final game of the road trip saw the Lightning play better but still fall short to the Sabres. After falling behind by two goals, the Lightning rallied behind two Brandon Hagel goals to send the game to overtime before a Dylan Cozens goal gave the Sabres the victory.
Goaltending Has Been Adequate
After reading the scores of the first two games, it might appear that the Lightning had some issues in net. However, a deeper look revealed that starting goaltender Jonas Johansson did stop 36 of 41 shots, but four of the goals allowed were a direct result of turnovers, three of them in their zone. After the Red Wings game, head coach Jon Cooper offered this assessment of his team’s performance in front of Johansson. “Just tonight, the amount of turnovers was just shocking, and by players that have played a lot of games with this team. We’ll get through that. When you look at the game, that doesn’t happen to us too often, the way we gave up chances or shot ourselves in the foot or however you want to call it. We’ll be better. There’s no doubt.”
Unfortunately, the team did not back up that comment the next night when Matt Tomkins made his NHL debut in Ottawa. The Lightning started slow in this contest, getting outshot 17-3 in the first period as the team’s lack of execution continued into Canada. The struggles the Lightning went through in these three games have very little to do with the quality of goaltending they received. Both goaltenders played well enough to give the Lightning a chance to win each game but were plagued by turnovers that Cooper described as “shocking.”
Playing Better in Front of Inexperienced Netminders
It would have been nice if the Lightning put forth the same level of execution and determination in these road games. In addition to the turnovers, their blocked shots were down from the opening night game. After registering 17 blocks against the Predators, that number went down to 11 against the Red Wings before rising to 15 against the Senators. It would have been the hope that a team knowing that their star goaltender, Andrei Vaskilevskiy, would not be in net for the next two months would be more focused on playing better in front of their two inexperienced backups.
Latest News & Highlights
For a team that knows this going into games, it is quite puzzling that the Lightning still had too many costly turnovers that led to too many goals allowed. In addition, they went into a game with a goaltender making his debut in the NHL but still played a flat opening period by having trouble possessing the puck leading to lopsided shots-on-goal and trailing by one going into the first intermission. Unfortunately, it was no better against the Sabres as the Lightning lapses saw them down 2-0 going into the first intermission, as a poor line change led to one goal, and a wide-open Sabre in front of the net led to the other goal.
Where is the Energy and Execution?
After the opening season win, many were ready to buy into the notion that the Lightning have a renewed energy after exiting in the first round of last year’s playoffs. This did carry over to the opening night victory, which prompted words from Cooper that have turned out to be accurate for the wrong reasons. “Everybody had something to do with this win tonight from the goalie on out, and if we are going to have success on this team, it is going to come from everybody. The contributions from everybody, that is what we are going to need.”
From a statistical standpoint, this lack of contribution from everyone on the roster has resulted in that going into the Sabres game, the Lightning conceded 37 shots on net per game while managing 27.3, and excessive time on the penalty kill does not skew that. According to NaturalStatTrick.com, this team has been among the worst 5v5 groups in the NHL, ranking 30th in shots for percentage and 26th in chances for percentage. Those numbers will not improve after putting up just two goals against Buffalo as they head home to try to recapture the energy and effort they had going into the season.
Related: Lightning Stock Up, Stock Down: Paul, Road Woes and More
Before the Sabres game, Cooper told the media, “To go on this trip this early in the year and get zero points out of teams you’re competing for a playoff spot with makes it a little bit of an uphill climb, and that’s not something you want to do earlier in the year. I don’t want to say Game 4s are big games, but this is a big one for us.” Earning one point in that final game of the road trip at least gave the team some points in the standings, and the ability to come back from two goals down to force the game to overtime was, at least, a small step forward in the right direction. Hopefully, returning home for their next three games will be able to get the team back on track and compete for a playoff spot in the 2023-24 season.