Lightning’s slide continues on road
RALEIGH, N.C. — A lot has gone wrong for the Lightning over the past three weeks. They’ve not only had uncharacteristic trouble winning games, their defensive poise has been lacking as well.
They’ve resembled a championship-caliber team in reputation only, with coach Jon Cooper resorting to benching his top three offensive stars Saturday in Buffalo in an attempt to give his team a wake-up call.
The Lightning hoped to rebound Sunday against the Central-leading Carolina. Instead, they fell behind early and had little luck chasing the game.
With their 6-0 loss at PNC Arena, the Lightning’s winless streak grew to five games, and they are 2-5-3 over their last 10. Tampa Bay has won just once in its last seven games and has allowed four or more goals in each of those six losses.
The sight of top defenseman Victor Hedman laid out on the ice nearly motionless behind their net after sliding awkwardly into the boards in the second period Sunday was the latest misfortune for a lost Lightning team.
Minutes after Hedman returned to the ice, Nikita Kucherov took a puck to the face and disappeared down the tunnel. Hedman then went back to the locker room after just one shift. Kucherov returned for the third period.
Without those two stars, the Lightning went the entire second period without a shot on goal, outshot 11-0. Their four shots on goal through two periods were the fewest of any team this season through a game’s first 40 minutes.
A Hurricanes team that can make life hard on teams on any night might have been one of the toughest rebound assignments for the Lightning. Carolina creates pressure, doesn’t yield much space and uses it to create offensive chances.
Through two periods, the Hurricanes had as many goals (four) as the Lightning had shots on goal. The closest Tampa Bay came to creating any offense in the second period was Brandon Hagel’s short-handed breakaway chance that pinged off the crossbar.
Carolina left wing Teuvo Teravainen had a hat trick, including two power-play goals. After Andrei Svechnikov opened the scoring 6:30 into the game — kicking his own blocked shot in front of him, separating himself from Lightning defenseman Zach Bogosian and rifling a shot past Andrei Vasilevskiy top shelf — the Hurricanes went ahead 2-0 on Teravainen’s power-play goal with 2:47 left in the period.
Just under 12 minutes into the second, Vasilevskiy turned the puck over trying to clear the puck from behind the net. Seconds later, it ended up behind him after Martin Necas found Teravainen in front. Trade-deadline acquisition Shayne Gostisbehere made it 4-0 with a power-play goal with 4:10 left in the period.
Shortly after Mikhail Sergachev hobbled to the Lightning bench after taking a blocked shot to the inside of his left knee on the penalty kill, Teravainen scored his third goal 11:03 into the third, putting back a rebound uncontested and prompting a shower of hats from the home crowd.